


The Most Adored

by Sicomoro



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Blow Jobs, Dubious Consent, Frottage, Guilt, Hand Jobs, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Sibling Incest, Twincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:53:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25640149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sicomoro/pseuds/Sicomoro
Summary: Tenn is weak. He’s weak. He’s always, always left powerless against this person, this person who won’t leave him alone, who chases after him, who longs to be like him. Tenn runs from him, and is always a step too slow. It’s not just Gaku, or Ryuu, or IDOLiSH7 he has to fight against. It’s not just Riku. It’s himself, and his traitorous heart, and the way his whole body pines and aches and burns to be near this person. He is running from a destiny he can’t escape.
Relationships: Kujou Ten/Nanase Riku
Comments: 29
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for the obvious.
> 
> my friend kept shoving this ship down my throat and i eventually caved and now TennRiku owns my ass. yamerooooo
> 
> this was originally supposed to be just a oneshot but i couldn't stop writing. chapter fic it is, i guess.

_Can I see Tenn-nii?_

_Tomorrow?_

One of his stylists has a hand in Tenn’s hair, carefully shaping the strands, moving like an artist, like a painter at her canvas. Tenn raises his eyes from his phone and looks into the mirror across from him, at his own face, layered with foundation and powder and all sorts of pigments, and sees a crack, a quiver at the edge of his mouth.

Immediately, he puts his phone away.

Gaku shuffles over from where he’s just finished shooting, and starts saying something like “I think it’s almost time—“ but Tenn, instead, interrupts him. Pointedly.

“You know, I hate when my phone number gets leaked.”

Gaku turns around instantly.

“Gaku.”

“I forgot something.” He walks away at a brisk pace, fast even for someone with legs as long as his.

All right. Well, no matter. He can leave that for later. Tenn will, today, focus on his birthday photoshoot, and refuse to let himself waver even slightly. That little mistake earlier had been a result of the shock. He’s at work. So he’ll work. That’s all.

Surrounded here with the reminder of him, of their shared blood, of that loathsome day tomorrow, he’ll work. He’ll work, and he’ll work, and he won’t think of him.

He won’t think of him.

-

He thought of him, of course.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Ryuu asks, chipper, as he always is. He picks some tinsel out of his hair and lets it fall to the ground. “I thought the balloon display was really—“

“Gaku,” Tenn says.

Ryuu will know to shut up when Tenn speaks in that tone, and he does. Unsurprisingly, Gaku doesn’t even flinch where he stands at the edge of the room, stripping out of his costume. He yanks off his jacket, and naturally, has the gall to ignore him. Tenn, again, sits in front of a mirror, this time wiping everything off.

His birthday photoshoot had, obviously, gone without a single fault. Because Tenn doesn’t make mistakes. He stood in front of the camera, and smiled, and held up balloons, and posed alongside Gaku and Ryuu, and was perfect. Because this is his job. And he carries it out with absolute precision, and is nothing but impeccable. The facade of a genius.

Still, he cannot tolerate Gaku’s indiscretion. He has talked to him before about these lapses of judgment. His persona depends on keeping distance from Riku. He won’t let Gaku, with his meddling personality, destroy years of practiced restraint. He’s come too far to stumble at a point like this. He won’t allow it.

Ryuu can seemingly do nothing but stand anxiously between them, looking back and forth. Silence falls over the dressing room save for the sounds of Gaku undressing, and Tenn cleaning his face.

Tenn finishes, and without a word walks up to Gaku and stands directly behind him. The muscles of his back clench, and he turns around.

“If you want an apology, you won’t get it,” Gaku says.

“Don’t interfere with affairs that have nothing to do with you.”

Gaku slips a t-shirt over his head, and makes full use of his height to look deliberately down at Tenn, in spite of the fact that he knows something like this could never faze Tenn in a million years. Tenn stares openly back at him.

Both Gaku and Ryuu are the two unforeseen hinderances in his life’s aim of staying as far away from Nanase Riku as possible. Time and time again they’ve allowed themselves to be duped or manipulated by various members of IDOLiSH7, somehow always pulling at Tenn, dragging him to events with them, going out for food with them when their schedules allow, and, inevitably, forcing him closer to the one person he wants to avoid the most. And then everyone has the nerve to be upset when he lashes out, when he calls Riku what he is: nothing more than an unreliable child. It would be laughable, if it wasn’t so brutally aggravating.

Also, Gaku is always giving Riku his phone number, now matter how many times Tenn changes it, no matter how many times he hides it from Gaku himself. That information will, without fail, end up in Riku’s desperate hands. Tenn knows it’s futile in the end, since he must register new phone numbers with the agency for them to keep track of him. As the president’s son, Gaku will always remain one step ahead of him when it comes to getting the information he wants. Even if Tenn complained about it, no one at the agency would do anything, because it’s Gaku.

That’s very unfortunate.

“If a family member is asking for things, I won’t say no.” There he goes again, like always, about family. Gaku wouldn’t know the first thing about it, yet he’s always preaching, always saying inane things like that, almost like he knows it gets under Tenn’s skin. Always, always, _family_. It makes him sick.

“I’d prefer it if you respected my privacy,” Tenn snaps.

Gaku scoffs.

Tenn could, if he wanted to, pull him down by his mess of hair and then— well, do something, but he isn’t foolish enough to put himself in that position. He is well aware of the difference of their bodies. He can only harness his words against someone like Gaku.

“Instead of sticking your nose into matters that don’t involve you, perhaps you should worry about your own personal relationships. I’m sure your father would—“

As expected, Gaku seizes Tenn by the collar, and Ryuu runs in between them.

“Hey, hey, I don’t know what this is about but, you know, let’s not fight here, okay?” he stammers. “It’s Tenn’s birthday tomorrow, and all...”

“Listen, brat,” Gaku hisses through his teeth, even as Ryuu attempts to gently pry his hand from Tenn’s jacket. Tenn feels his feet lifting off the floor. “Nanase asked me, so I told him. And I’ll tell him no matter how many times he asks me. Because it’s the right thing to do. So I won’t stop. Remember that.”

He throws Tenn back, and Ryuu yelps and catches him. And he stalks out of the dressing room, and slams the door on the way out, like he’s inclined to do when he’s in a fit of anger. So childish.

If that’s the case, then it can’t be helped. Tenn will find a way to deal with it, just like he has up until now. Even if it means torturing himself, layering on more and more fake smiles, he’ll bear with it. All he can do is try to survive like this for as long as he can.

The drive back to Yaotome Pro isn’t particularly pleasant. Ryuu sits between them in the van, acting as some sort of buffer. No one speaks. And Tenn looks out the window, and sees Riku everywhere. _Happy birthday, IDOLiSH7’s Nanase Riku!_ All sorts of posters and announcements like that. And of course, ones for himself, but he doesn’t notice those at all. He sees only Riku, smiling at him from various promotional images. Riku, Riku, Riku. His little brother.

They have their live radio show recording next. Just like the photoshoot, it’s for Tenn’s birthday. They enter the recording studio, and Gaku acts as the MC for the three of them, as he usually does. But as professional as Gaku is, he simply can’t keep his emotions off his face for the whole of the show. He’s weak in that way. So even when they laugh through it, when Gaku rolls easily through the questions and the witty remarks, he’s petty enough to stop and look Tenn dead in the eyes. And say, “Of course, it’s Nanase Riku’s birthday tomorrow too, right?”

Tenn doesn’t flinch. He won’t let Gaku do this.

“Yes, it is,” he says flatly.

“Do you happen to know how he’s spending his birthday?”

Tenn jams his fingernails into his palm. He gives a soft laugh. “I can only assume that his fellow members will be causing him a lot of trouble.”

Gaku is apparently undaunted by Tenn’s innocuous responses. Tenn can see him riling up, it’s so obvious in the glint of his eyes. He’s definitely going to get in trouble for going off-script, but that isn’t much of a comfort to Tenn right now. A suitable punishment for Gaku would be something much worse.

“How about we all wish Nanase a happy birthday? Ryuu, go ahead.”

Ryuu is so easily roped into Gaku’s idiocies. “Oh, uh... Yeah! Riku-kun, happy birthday!” As expected, he looks like has no idea what’s going on. “I hope you have a really great time tomorrow.”

Gaku isn’t doing a very good job of hiding the fiendish grin on his face. He leans close to his microphone and says, “Nanase, happy birthday. Don’t forget that you can always ask me whatever you want.”

Tenn isn’t a violent person. He isn’t. Even though Gaku taunts him like this, like he’s enjoying this to the fullest, he won’t succumb to the basest of his urges. He won’t kick Gaku square in his absurdly long legs beneath this table. He won’t reach over and snatch his microphone and throw it against the wall. He won’t do anything. He’ll simply sit here and take it. Because this is the destiny he’s chosen for himself.

“Now, Tenn,” Gaku says, his face awash with the foolish glow of triumph. “Your turn.”

One day, he’s going to make Gaku wish he had never done this.

“Riku,” he says gently into the microphone, “Happy birthday. Are you excited for tomorrow? I really hope you have lots of fun, and get a big cake with lots of strawberries. I’m sure you’ll get lots of presents from the other six. I miss you.”

He didn’t mean to say all that. Whatever. Tenn sits back, crosses his arms over his chest. Gaku bursts out with, “Such a heartfelt message. Surely everyone is looking forward to tomorrow’s celebrations. Our photoshoot for Tenn will be out tomorrow too, so make sure you see it.”

This has gotten excruciating. Tenn talks very little until the radio show ends. Ryuu seems to notice, and picks up the slack, which Tenn appreciates, somewhere deep down. And as soon as recording is finished, Tenn slams his headphones onto the table and walks out of the studio. Ryuu is the only one that calls out to him.

He asks to be driven home at once, and the staff grant his request without any questions. Tenn is driven to his apartment by himself, feeling his mood grow more sour the closer he gets.

His phone chimes then, and he makes the mistake of looking at it.

_Tenn-nii, thank you so much for wishing me a happy birthday!!! It made me so happy!!!! I wasn’t expecting that when I was listening today!!! I miss you so much too, Tenn-nii!!! Soooooo much!!!_

He needs to get home.

When Tenn arrives, he locks the door behind him, draws the curtains shut, dims the lights, and takes a frozen meal out of the fridge. He heats it up, sits down, and shovels rice into his mouth.

There are a lot of thoughts going through his head. This rice is slightly undercooked. It’s a little cold in here. He’s tired despite it being only 7:00 PM. He wants to see Riku. He should change out of these clothes. And he really wants to eat a donut right now.

Most of all, he wants to see Riku.

He won’t. He won’t let himself. He will _not_ let himself.

He jabs at a piece of pork with his chopsticks.

He wishes he could blame Gaku for the entirety of this day, but that wouldn’t be honest. Gaku’s meddling is really just a byproduct of an issue Tenn created himself. Without meaning to. Without wanting to. Without having even the slightest inkling of the miserable fate he was devising for himself.

A long, long time ago, a feeling was born in Tenn’s heart like a little rosebud. And when it bloomed, he knew there was nothing to do but lock it away. It could never be seen. And all the while the little rose grew and grew, and the thorns pricked at his insides. For years and years. And even after all the times he tried to forget about it, to destroy it, it was there, it was always there, scratching its way out of the depths of his chest. And every time that person touched him, every time that he spoke sweet words to him, petals would burst at the bottom of Tenn’s throat, like they could choke him, like they would kill him if he didn’t say it. If he didn’t let them out, if he didn’t let them bloom on his tongue, and say _I love you so, so, so much, Riku_.

But he never said it. He’s never said anything close to that. So he’s been dying, slowly. And as that cursed feeling flourishes and expands deep inside of him, he can feel the weight of it ruining him all over. And Tenn had thought, in the past, that it would get easier as time went on, but it’s the opposite that’s true. It gets harder, and it gets worse. And not being near him is the worst out of everything.

One day, Tenn had watched Riku sleep in a hospital bed. And he had thought, _I’ll protect you_. _I’ll take care of you_. _I love you_. Stupid things like that. Just a child thinking childish things. Tenn wasn’t in a position to protect anyone at that point. And later, when Riku’s limbs grew a little longer and Tenn started to notice the affection in his voice when he said Tenn’s name, and how utterly different they had really become, he realized that the one person Riku needed protection from was himself.

So he left. He thrust himself into a world he didn’t know. He trusted those around him, and let them mold him into an angel. He had let go of the real pieces of himself, and replaced them with manufactured parts. And now he’s here. Every day, pretending to be something he isn’t. Lying to everyone, and lying to himself most of all.

He isn’t hungry, suddenly.

Tenn gets up and puts his half-finished meal away. He’s cracking. He can feel it, distinctly. He’s been cracking since this morning when he got that first text message. If that’s the case, he’ll move to his bedroom. The only place he’ll allow himself to break is there.

There are a lot of things he should be doing instead. While he has the day off tomorrow for his birthday, there is still a lot of work he needs to prepare for. There are some scripts he needs to read. Some fan messages to write. Some dances to go over. It’s endless. Days off are never really just that. They’re merely days where someone isn’t breathing over his shoulder or telling him exactly what to do. Days off don’t really exist. Because being a perfect idol is very hard work, but it can’t look like it takes any work at all.

Tenn’s only solace during times like these is to look at photos of him and Riku from when they were children.

He digs a small box out from beneath his bed, and it’s filled to the brim with pictures he had swiped from his family’s photo albums before leaving for good. Him and Riku, or Riku alone. Eating ice pops together in the summer. Wearing raincoats and stepping into puddles. Holding hands, walking down the road. Just Riku and him, him and Riku. Each the mirror image of the other.

And Riku, always, always, with a smile like sunshine. He does it even now. When he performs, when he meets a fan, when he sees Tenn. He grins like the light of day. More than any other part of Riku, Tenn loves that smile the most. There’s no sight in the whole world he adores more.

Tenn remembers those summers. He remembers the rain. And he remembers walking hand in hand. Even though all those memories feel like they took place a lifetime ago, he can visualize every one of them with exceptional clarity. Other things, he’s forgotten. But Riku, never. Not Riku. He could never, ever forget the Nanase Riku from when he was Nanase Tenn.

He doesn’t know how long he spends staring at pictures of them. At some point, he climbs onto his bed, and analyzes a photo of Riku by himself, sitting in a field, a bunch of weeds clutched in his hand. His elbows and knees are dirty. And he’s just the embodiment of sweetness and innocence, just like he is now, just naive and pure and lovely. How he blushes when his fans call him handsome. How he shies away when the others are talking about crude things. He’s an angel. And not one cobbled together like Tenn, but a real one. A true, genuine angel.

And Tenn is so, so, so devastatingly in love with him.

-

He’s awoken hours later by the sound of his phone ringing loudly.

Tenn jerks up in bed, and there are pictures scattered all around him. But he doesn’t have time to think about that. He picks up the phone and answers without even looking at the number.

“Tenn-nii.”

That’s the last voice he wanted to hear.

He says nothing.

“Tenn-nii...” Riku’s voice sounds off somehow. “Tenn-nii? Are you there?”

Tenn lets out a shaky breath. “Riku.”

Riku giggles into the phone. Tenn’s stomach feels very hollow suddenly.

“Tenn- _nii_...” Riku says, and his voice pitches up at the end, like a whine. “I miss you so much, you know? _So much_.”

“...Riku.”

Of course. Of course, of course. Why didn’t Tenn expect this? Of course those idiots could never be trusted on an occasion like this. Of course they’d let Riku drink the very second he turns 20. Of course they’d let him get drunk and call his brother at 2:00 AM. All to be expected, and yet Tenn hadn’t expected any of it.

He’s the idiot, not them.

“Tenn-nii, I want to see you.” Riku’s voice is cute. It’s so, so cute, and Tenn hates himself for thinking so. “For our— our bir—“

“Riku, where are you?” Tenn bites out.

“Nn? Where?”

“Where are you,” Tenn repeats.

“Oh, I’m just at home.” In the background, Tenn hears a sound like something falling over. “Um, with the others...”

“Who is there?”

“Everyone except Iori and Tamaki. Sogo-san made them leave earlier. Hehe.”

Tenn’s anxiety is starting to spike. He can’t possibly trust them to take care of Riku. He’s sure they’re forcing him to drink a lot more than he should be. Riku has never had any substantial quantity of alcohol in his entire life. There’s no way he can tolerate it.

Tenn fists a hand into his comforter. “Riku, do you feel okay?”

“Erm, well—“ There are some strange shuffling sounds on the other end. Tenn distinctly hears Riku say Rokuya Nagi’s name. Someone else yells for Riku. It’s markedly chaotic.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku says, urgency in his tone. “Tenn-nii, they’re saying to hang up. Tenn-nii, I want to see you, I want to see you—“

There are more odd sounds, and then the call ends.

Tenn rationalizes it to himself by saying he has no choice. He gets up out of bed and puts on a fresh change of clothes, and makes himself believe this is the only thing he can do. And he walks outside, calls a taxi, and during the car ride to the IDOLiSH7 dorms he forces himself into trusting that this is the best course of action.

IDOLiSH7 is an amalgamation of seven very different personalities. Certainly there would be personalities among them that would make these kinds of foolhardy decisions and ply Riku with too much alcohol on his birthday. That’s just the kind of group they are. Obviously, they don’t mean any ill will, but Tenn simply cannot allow it. This is him being the doting older brother everyone thinks he should be. He’s just going over to make sure that Riku hasn’t drunk himself into a near-comatose state. This is him being responsible. This is him watching over his little brother. This is him doing what he has to do.

Is what he tells himself, at least.

It doesn’t take long for Tenn to push past his own deception. It’s easy, because it’s always at the back of his mind: his true motivations. His real feelings. The way he wants to steal Riku away, lock him up somewhere, never let him go. All of that. Everything like that. How good it would feel to kidnap him from the whole world, keep Riku only for himself. Only Tenn’s. Only for Tenn to look at, to touch, to make bend to his will. An absolute ownership. The thrill of control.

Tenn knows he’s in this taxi at this very moment only because he wants to see Riku.

Once Tenn is dropped off at the dorm’s doorstep, he has the terrifying impulse to call a taxi once more and head directly back. He shouldn’t be doing this. He can’t possibly be this weak. It had happened so fast. He’d allowed himself to make a mistake like this only after hearing Riku’s voice for a single minute. He had gotten up and left immediately. Without hesitation. Without thinking too hard. He had gotten up, and chased the sound of Riku’s voice.

This is how vulnerable he is to that person. It’s something Tenn knows, but it’s still such a bitter feeling when he lets it happen. He likes to think he’s better than this, but he isn’t. He isn’t and he never has been, and likely never will be. In spite of all the things he tells himself, in spite of how much distance he tries putting between them, the fact is, Tenn will always be at Riku’s mercy, and at the mercy of his own toxic devotion to him.

He can’t fight it. He rings the doorbell, knocks hard on the front door, and grits his teeth.

Izumi Mitsuki flings the door open moments later and upon seeing Tenn, freezes. His cheeks are flushed and eyes hazy, and he somehow leans more to the left than he should be. Tenn immediately hears a large commotion in some room behind him. There are red balloons strewn about in the hallway.

“Kujo,” Izumi says blankly.

Tenn is already here, so he may as well see this through as quickly as possible. He steps forward. Izumi makes way for him.

“Where is Riku?”

“Eh?”

Tenn leans forward. Looking down on Izumi Mitsuki is one of the only times he feels tall.

“Riku. Where is he?”

“Um—“

Just then, the subject himself bursts out of a room, followed by Rokuya Nagi, who is seemingly attempting to keep Riku standing. He’s failing, mostly because he can hardly stand either.

Riku sees him, and says, “Tenn-nii?”

No one says anything save for Nikaido Yamato, who steps out from behind to ask who’s at the door.

“Riku,” Tenn says.

“Tenn-nii.” Riku wiggles his way out of Rokuya’s grasp, and stumbles over. He throws his arms around Tenn’s neck, and inhales hard into Tenn’s jacket. “Tenn-nii, _Tenn-nii._ ”

He’s incredibly drunk. Tenn can smell it on him, all over him. On all of them. The other three, who now look at him like they’ve been caught breaking the law. It’s amusing.

Except it isn’t at all. Beneath the surface, Tenn burns with anger, and he places his hands on Riku’s waist and holds him there, because Riku can’t stand on his own. And these three are the cause of it. This can't continue.

“I’ll be taking him,” he says, very bluntly, and drags Riku outside, shutting the door behind them.

Riku is very fidgety in the taxi ride back. He clings to Tenn, and shifts his body around, and doesn’t say much other than Tenn’s name, and ask where they’re going. Tenn can’t say a word, because all he can think about is how big of a mistake this is.

Even more than someone seeing them, what he worries about the most is the feeling unfurling from deep in his chest.

They reach the apartment after an annoying elevator ride in which Riku nearly fell over. They enter, and Tenn straight away rips his jacket off and sits Riku down on the couch, where he promptly slumps over. Tenn brings him water, and helps him sit back up.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku says, even as Tenn presses the cup to his lips. “Tenn—“

“Drink it.”

Riku turns his face away.

“Riku. Drink.”

“No.”

Tenn seizes his face in one hand. “Riku.”

“I’m not thirsty,” he mumbles.

The movement of Riku’s jaw in Tenn’s hand feels good. Really good. So good that it nearly distracts Tenn, but he once more pushes the cup against Riku’s lips, and says in a voice that won’t allow for refusal, “Drink it right now, Riku.”

So Riku obeys him, as expected. He squeezes his eyes shut and drinks the whole thing. And when he’s done a droplet runs out the side of his mouth, and Tenn follows it with his eyes. He wipes it away with his thumb.

“I’m tired,” Riku says, and leans heavily sideways. Tenn catches him before he can sag onto the couch again. “I’m tired, Tenn-nii...”

“Do you want to sleep?” he asks.

“Noooo.”

“Riku, you just said—“

Riku sits up suddenly, and buries his face in Tenn’s chest, gripping hard to his shirt. His voice is muffled when he says, “Tenn-nii came to see me. I wanna stay awake.”

This was such a mistake.

Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now. If Tenn has made it this far, he can’t keep dwelling on what an absolutely idiotic decision this was. The fact is they’re here, together, alone, and Tenn needs to take care of him. That was the whole point of this. To look after Riku, to make sure he was all right. He has to see that through. He has to.

Even though he really didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to bring Riku here. He didn’t have to do any of this.

Riku looks up at him, and blinks, and says softly, “Tenn-nii, happy birthday.”

There is no rationalizing now.

Tenn is weak. He’s weak. He’s always, always left powerless against this person, this person who won’t leave him alone, who chases after him, who longs to be like him. Tenn runs from him, and is always a step too slow. It’s not just Gaku, or Ryuu, or IDOLiSH7 he has to fight against. It’s not just Riku. It’s himself, and his traitorous heart, and the way his whole body pines and aches and burns to be near this person. He is running from a destiny he can’t escape. He’s always had some sense of that, but he realizes it now, fully. Clearly. He’s been running for so long that he’s become accustomed to it. Lapses like this, he’s always explained away. Yes, he’s weak. But he’ll just move further away. He’ll stop responding to his messages. He’ll avoid him at events. Every time, increasing their distance. And every time, something like this happens. Tenn will reach out to him before he even realizes what he’s doing. It’s always, always escalating.

Because he is bound to Riku. No matter how many times he tries to sever the ties connecting them, it’s all for nothing, since he can’t break the one attachment he despises the most. The root of every single problem in his life. Tenn is stuck in this infinite loop of running away and running toward, and if he knew how to release himself from it, he would. But if the only escape is to no longer love Nanase Riku, he’ll never be free.

So this is his fate, then.

Tenn takes Riku’s face in his hands, and has to swallow hard at the closeness of him, how he can feel Riku’s warmth, how his cheeks burn, how red his skin is beneath Tenn’s fingers. He runs his thumb over Riku’s lips, and his stomach dips at the sensation of it, Riku’s gentle breaths going in and out, the residual wetness from the water, the way those lips tremble slightly. He would die just to lean in and taste the corner of his mouth.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku says, against his thumb.

Something shifts, somehow. Tenn can feel it. Inside. That thing that has festered at the filthy core of himself. A beast that has lain dormant for years and years and years. The one Tenn vowed to lock away the last time he let himself release his frenzied desire into his own hand. That had been during his adolescence. Back before he had built up his resistance to it. Because this is something that won’t be content with fantasies. It won’t settle for daydreams. It will take hold of Tenn, and force him to satisfy its appetite.

Tenn pushes his thumb into Riku’s mouth.

Riku’s tongue is hot and wet against him, and his eyes blink just a little with surprise, but he’s drunk, so he’s pliable, and he’s docile, and he won’t resist. Tenn knows that.

This ravenous feeling, rising and rising. And Tenn doing nothing to stop it. He looks down at Riku, at his little open mouth, and every single nerve in his body lights up with a violent intensity, and he feels it over every inch of his skin, how it ignites, how his lungs seize up. And he remembers this feeling, how he indulged it before, how he touched himself and thought of devouring Riku, of thrusting into him and ruining him, leaving his mark all over. Throwing Riku’s legs open and having his way with him without giving him the chance to say no. Finally satiating the monster inside himself.

“Riku.” Tenn doesn’t recognize his own voice, and it should frighten him. It does not.

Riku hums around the finger in his mouth, blinks slowly and deliberatively, like trying to make sense of this, of all of this, of everything that’s happened to this point. But he won’t make sense of it, because he can’t right now. The potentialities of this moment make Tenn’s throat close up. Riku, warm and alive in his hands, the burning wetness of his mouth, the look in his eyes, like compliance, like obedience.

Like invitation.

“Riku,” Tenn says, like a shiver. “Riku. Riku.”

It’s too much. It’s too much, to try to resist right now. “Riku,” he says, and pushes his thumb in further. His other hand starts to tangle in Riku’s hair. “ _Riku._ ” It’s too much.

Riku’s eyes squeeze shut, and he gags around Tenn’s finger, and he pulls back, and wipes at his mouth. And his movements are sloppy and slow, and so it’s easy for him to fall back onto the couch, and it’s easy for Tenn to follow him. And it’s just as easy for Tenn to loom over him, and push Riku’s shirt up, and palm at his waist. His skin is feverish. And Tenn lets himself move like someone possessed, and pushes Riku’s shirt up to his collarbone, and takes in the way his nipples poke out, and how Riku shudders now as the cold air of the room hits his skin. Tenn feels like he could drop dead just looking at this.

Riku makes noises now. Soft little moans like he can’t help it. He closes his eyes and whimpers at the way Tenn touches him, at his hips, at his neck, brushing his hair behind his ear, he twitches and makes sounds Tenn has never heard before. No one has ever heard this before. No one has ever even seen this before. Tenn knows it. He knows it down to the most corrupt recesses of himself. Riku has never shown this to anyone else.

Tenn watches him, marks every detail like he’s committing it to memory, and perhaps he is. All these parts of Riku he hasn’t seen, but has imagined. At the fuzzy edges of his consciousness, he envisioned him like this. He thought about Riku’s body and filled in the blanks that were unknown to him. An image he had crafted himself and stored away. But that can’t compare to this. The flesh and blood held in his hands, the movement of Riku’s chest up and down. Even the mind-bendingly irresistible vision that had haunted Tenn’s dreams back then is torn to pieces by this. This being, painted in hues of scarlet and gold and the cherry pink of his little mouth.

He couldn’t possibly be strong against this. So he won’t be.

Tenn touches at spots that make Riku arch up into his hands. Over his stomach, and at the sides of his waist. Just gently like that, staring at Riku and the fluctuations of his body. And it happens by accident, mostly, when he brushes his fingers over Riku’s nipple, and he jolts. And he makes a sound Tenn can’t describe. He brings his hands up to his mouth, like a shy little boy, like he used to as a child. Tenn remembers that, vividly.

Riku opens his eyes, and he looks at Tenn, and mumbles, faintly, “Feels good.”

Tenn sucks in a breath. He plants his hands on either side of Riku, and digs his nails into the couch.

“It feels good?” he asks, before he can think about it.

Riku nods, and he removes his hands from in front of his mouth. “Feels good. Tenn-nii’s hands…”

“…Should I touch again?”  
  
“Yeah.”

“Where?”

Riku brings his hands down to his own chest, presses bashfully at the muscles there. He pinches a nipple between his fingers, and lets out a sigh in a higher pitch than Tenn has ever heard from him. “Here,” Riku whispers, “Feels good.”

Since Tenn is very practiced in maintaining control, in not letting emotions show on his face, he would think he wouldn’t break so easily. He would think he’d be able to handle it. But he shatters, instantly. With no time to react, he shatters. Everything comes spilling out. All of it. His love bleeds out freely now, like shedding from a wound.

“This spot?” he asks, with a dangerous edge to his voice. He moves his hands over Riku’s chest, over the delicate pinkness of his nipples, and he loves the way they sink in and stick out, how they react to his touch, so unbearably sexy. “Here, Riku?”

“Mmhmm,” Riku whimpers, nodding slightly, red in the face. The vision of pleasure. Tenn starts to feel very dizzy, touching him like this. “Tenn-nii, more.” Riku’s voice starts angling upward. “There— more—“

“More?”

“Do it there... more...” He doesn’t make too much sense, but Tenn loves his voice this way anyway. “Right there, it...”

So Tenn leans down, and swipes at his chest with his tongue.

Riku bucks up into him, starts making quiet little _Ah ah ah_ sounds, says, over and over, _Right there right there right there_. Tenn blows at the nipple he had just been lapping over, takes it between his teeth. And pulls.

“ _Tenn-nii_.” Riku sounds very lost somewhere, suddenly.

Which is when Tenn notices Riku’s hand, pressed hard to the front of his jeans, trembling, rubbing. His hips quivering, aching for friction. This moment, like standing at the edge of something, a chance dangling in front of his eyes. This person, his most adored. His dearest. His one and only love, moving beneath his hands, beneath his tongue, breathing out his name, _wanting_. Desperate to touch himself because that’s how good Tenn is making him feel.

Tenn feels it all like a rush of blood to his head.

He exhales hard, bends down to press his lips to Riku’s neck.

“Riku,” he murmurs against his skin, “Do you want to feel even better?”

A quick little noise. “Nn.”

“Do you want me to keep touching?”

“Nn.”

“Where?”

“Um...”

Tenn nips at the skin of Riku’s neck. “Tell me where.”

“It’s embarrassing,” he hears Riku whine.

“It’s not embarrassing.”

“I-In front of Tenn-nii, I don’t—“

“Tell me,” Tenn says.

“But...”

Tenn pulls back. He stares down hard at Riku’s flushed face, at the way his ears have turned crimson at the tips. How he looks like this, with his shirt pushed up, after asking to be touched, after letting out his voice like that.

Tenn feels it low in his gut, something like greed. Something like rot, like contamination. The worst of all his urges, bubbling eagerly to the surface.

“Riku,” he says, sharply. “Tell me.”

When he speaks like this, he knows Riku won’t disobey. It’s a reflex for him. Tenn made sure to instill that in him, even as children, even up to the moment Tenn walked away from his family. Riku, from the beginning, was always good at taking orders. Always eager to please his big brother. Even when he didn’t want to, even when it pained him, he would do as Tenn said, he would be a good boy for him, and he would not complain.

So in spite of it all, he fights through his embarrassment, and tells Tenn, “It… it hurts…”

“Where does it hurt?”

Riku lets out a breath that stutters, and looks down, fumbles with the button and zipper of his jeans. His hands are unsteady, faltering, and Tenn only watches, somehow questioning himself, somehow wondering if this truly is happening in front of him. But it is. And it’s as real as the thunderous beat of his heart in his ears, as real as the way his skin tingles over his whole body. This is happening.

Riku yanks his jeans down just a bit, just enough for Tenn to see the damp bulge hiding beneath, and it’s all, in a way, really cute. Riku’s nervousness, his embarrassment, it’s cute. Everything about him right now, down to the way he blinks his eyes up at Tenn and says, very meekly, “Tenn-nii, it hurts.” It’s adorable.

“It hurts?” Tenn asks. His hands find their way to Riku’s hips, thumbing at the elastic band of his underwear. Riku chokes on a whine.

“Tenn-nii…”

“Does it hurt here?” Tenn doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore. He inches Riku’s jeans down a little further, slips a finger under the band, pulls. Riku yelps. “Here?”

Riku thrusts his arms over his face, gasps out, “There, there,” like he could cry. His voice is going increasingly wobbly. “There, right there.”

“Should I make it better?” Tenn can’t hear himself, but the words feel good, just to say, just to form in his mouth. He feels a tremor in his jaw and bites down against it.

Riku merely nods.

“How should I do it?”

Everything stops. Riku inhales, exhales, inhales, exhales. Inhales again. And in an urgent little gush of breath he says, “Tenn-nii’s hands.”

So Tenn pushes them over the point of no return.

He pulls off Riku’s jeans, throws them to the floor. He can’t help it, so he presses his lips to the smooth inside of Riku’s left thigh, sucks deep and hard there, bites the flesh, licks over the spot. Riku moves in jerks and spasms, pants noisily, like his breath can’t come fast enough. And Tenn creates a perfect purple blemish there, in a place no one else will see, a secret between them both. A way for Tenn to write his love all over this body. A way for him to record his weakness for this object of his obsession.

Tenn leans back up and without a word, he tugs Riku’s underwear down and grips him in his hand.

Riku’s arms drop immediately to the couch above his head. His mouth falls open, his eyes flutter shut. And he moans high, long, and loud, the most violently erotic sound Tenn has ever heard.

And he continues to draw it out, that same sound, with the rhythm of his hand, drinks it in, consumes it, feeding his lifelong desire, his destiny to hunger for this person. His eyes move over Riku’s squirming body, covetous, possessive, documenting every single shape and slant of him, the curve of his shoulders, the dip of his pelvis. Everything, every beautiful fragment of him.

“Riku,” Tenn stammers.

Riku, in answer, reaches for him, and his eyes are wet, and his lips are bitten red, and Tenn is overwhelmed by his love for him, until he feels like he could sob, when he hasn’t cried in years, hasn’t let himself put a voice to this emotion, not once, not ever. Riku curls his arms around Tenn’s neck, and sighs out a happy little noise full of pleasure, and shows Tenn his favorite sight in the whole world.

“I feel really good,” he whispers, and quirks his lips up into his blindingly beautiful smile.

And right there and then, Tenn presses a hand to Riku’s cheek, swallows back his fear, and chokes out, “Riku, I love you.”

And Riku kisses him.

He pulls Tenn’s head down and kisses him. Sloppy and heated, groaning into it. Tenn pushes his tongue in, and Riku keens into his mouth. Tenn’s mind goes incredibly blank.

Gradually, Riku’s voice goes higher and higher. Tenn grips him tighter, picks up the rhythm of his hand. And Riku squeaks in between kisses, those small, soft _ah ahhh_ sounds again, mixed in with words like _there_ and _faster._ And, more than anything, Tenn’s name. _Tenn-nii, Tenn-nii._

It’s messy. It’s obscene. The wetness hanging between their mouths, the slick sounds of Tenn rubbing him, and Riku with one leg hooked around Tenn’s hip, rocking shamelessly upward into his touch. Tenn, hopelessly hard in the confines of his own jeans. But this is more than enough for him. Seeing Riku like this right now will surely, surely be enough for the rest of his life.

Riku’s close. Tenn can tell, because he starts to babble.

“Tenn-nii… Feels good,” he says, shaky, curling his arms tighter. “Tenn-nii’s— Tenn-nii’s hands feel r-really…”

“My hands feel good?” Tenn asks, like some sort of filthy encouragement, when he really doesn’t have to ask that at all. He knows the answer by now.

“Yeah, really good, really good,” Riku says, and his voice goes higher still. “So good, _so good_ , Tenn-nii.”

“More?”

“Yeah, _ahhh_ , yeah, more.” Riku presses his lips against Tenn’s, breathes into his mouth, “More, more.”

“Riku,” Tenn says, feeling sweat start to drip slowly down the back of his neck. His wrist is beginning to shoot pain up his arm. “Riku, let me see you feel good.”

“I feel good, I feel good,” Riku insists, breathless.

“When you let it out,” Tenn says, instead, “Let me see you when you let it out.”

“Okay,” Riku says, with no hesitation. Always so straightforward. “I wanna— I wanna— soon—“

“Faster?

“Nn.”

Riku hips start to meet Tenn’s fist with the perfect timing, punching out gasps from deep in Riku’s chest, making his body spasm all over. He’s falling apart, and Tenn watches it all with rapt attention. He’s beautiful. He’s always been beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. Every facet of him. Maddeningly, sickeningly beautiful.

Finally, Riku’s voice reaches its zenith, a shrill, cracked, destructive noise, and he cums so hard onto his abdomen his legs quake with a frightening severity, like his body is charged and electric, held taut at the edge of a thunderbolt, before he simply sobs, “Tenn-nii, Tenn-nii,” and all his limbs collapse heavily to the couch.

Tenn can already tell Riku has completely melted into unconsciousness, so in a final effort he pulls himself away, staggers to the bathroom, wrenches his jeans down, and spends only seconds before crumbling to pieces.

He falls to the floor and kneels there, one arm braced against the wall, and wheezes until he can force himself to catch his breath.

He feels nauseous almost immediately.

So he chooses his only option, and shoves every single one of his thoughts down into a place where he won’t have to face them. His guilty feelings, already starting to nip at his insides. No. Later. Later, he’ll have time to deal with them, and he’ll let them destroy him as much as they want.

Tenn stands up, washes his hands, soaks a washcloth. Every part of him moving on autopilot. He leaves the bathroom and steps over to where Riku lays dead to the whole universe, and wipes him clean, very deliberately, careful not to miss a single sullied spot on him, even down between his legs, where the most wetness has collected, even when the sticky sound of it makes Tenn’s eyebrow twitch. But he won’t let himself stumble. All of this, he’ll store away. He’ll save every single solitary sensation and thought and feeling for later.

After, he carries Riku to his room. On his bed still lie the pictures he had been looking at before, the ones of them as children. He brushes them off with his foot, places Riku there, and tugs off his shirt. He maneuvers Riku into a pair of his own pajamas with difficulty, since Riku is utterly limp in his hands. And he covers Riku with his blanket, and crouches down to pick up the photographs. He stuffs them away without looking at them, back into the darkest corner of the space under his bed.

He stands up, and walks directly out. He puts on the same jacket he was wearing before, the one Riku had clung to at the IDOLiSH7 dormitory. His phone and keys are still inside.

Tenn doesn’t need anything else. He steps out the door of his apartment, locks it behind him. On the long way down in the elevator, he looks at the time. It’s 4:00 in the morning.

And he walks out of the apartment complex, and calls his third taxi in the span of two hours.

Upon being dropped off in front of Yaotome Pro, he stares openly up at the building, wondering where inside would be the best place to keel over. Not that he wants to, but he can feel it coming. Tenn, as a perfect idol, knows his own body from top to bottom. If he’s going to collapse, he wants it to be here.

Now might be a good time to punish Gaku, he thinks distantly.

He takes the elevator to Gaku’s residence in the building, and copious knocking draws a drowsy, irritated Gaku to the door. Which is when Tenn allows himself to drop, Gaku snatching him just before he hits the floor. And he’s perfectly content to wither away like this, to lean into the dark, to close his eyes and disappear. But he won’t be that lucky.

“You brat,” Gaku says, and Tenn lets himself plummet into a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no clue where TRIGGER live so i took some liberties with that.
> 
> im sorry the literal first chapter of this is so long. the following chapters will probably not be much shorter. rip
> 
> if you are also a member of the church of TennRiku, please talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sympamore).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter inspired by the fact that i too get fevers when under extreme stress. LOL

In truth, Tenn doesn’t really sleep much. Because of that, Gaku doesn’t either.

It isn’t pleasant. Tenn's sleep is marred by nightmares he forgets the moment he opens his eyes. It feels like something is clawing its way out of him. His face is hot. His body aches. And Gaku’s irritated voice is there for all of it.

“Why do you always let yourself get like this,” he says, not a question. An exasperated statement. He slaps a wet cloth onto Tenn’s forehead, and Tenn doesn’t have any strength left to complain. “Always around your birthday.”

Tenn doesn’t know what time it is. He drifts back to sleep. But when he wakes up hours later, it’s 10:00 AM. Gaku, annoyingly, is still there at the bedside as soon as he opens his eyes. There’s a big bowl of soup in his hands.

“What are you doing?” Tenn’s voice sounds horrible.

“Eat this soup.”

Tenn sits up. His fever has broken. He can feel sweat covering him all over.

“...You didn’t have to d—“

“Shut up,” Gaku interrupts, and half-forces the bowl into Tenn’s lap. “I’m not letting you leave until you’ve finished the whole thing.”

There’s no arguing with that when Tenn is the one who intruded into his apartment. He looks down, and dutifully begins to bring spoonfuls to his mouth.

Gaku seemingly allows himself to step back, and he plops onto the foot of the bed, and openly stares at Tenn until Tenn says, curtly, “Please stop watching me eat.”

Out of nowhere, Gaku says, “Hey. Where’s Riku?”

The spoon slips from Tenn’s hand and clatters back into the bowl with a tiny splash. Gaku’s face doesn’t betray any kind of strange implications; in spite of that, Tenn feels his body start to shake. Gaku notices, he knows it. He’s not able to hide anything the way he is right now. Not a thing.

He says nothing, and Gaku lets out a deep sigh.

“...I know you took Riku from the dorms.”

“Why do you know that?” Tenn asks, tense.

“The others didn’t hear back from him last night, so they were asking me if I knew anything.”

Tenn doesn’t answer. It all starts crashing down upon him like waves, the tsunami of his feelings. The gravity of what he’s done. How far he allowed himself to go.

He can never turn it back.

“I should go,” he chokes out.  
  
He places the bowl at the small bedside table, and starts to stand before Gaku bodily shoves him down. He’s just about to start angrily protesting when Gaku snaps, “Don’t run away.”

“Get off of me, Gaku.”

“Tell me what the hell is wrong.”

“None of this is any of your business,” Tenn hisses, fighting to push Gaku’s shoulder out of his line of sight. “Get off.”

“You’re the one who showed up here, you ungrateful brat.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“I lost sleep because of you!”

“That’s not my problem,” Tenn says, but it really _is_ his problem. It’s very much his problem.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Tenn.”

“No.”

Gaku looks pissed, as expected. His grip on Tenn’s arms tightens to the point of pain. He spits out, “If you took Riku from the dorms, why the hell would you come here alone?”

“I couldn’t be near him anymore!” Tenn bursts out in a fit of anger, a big mistake. Gaku lets go very suddenly, and Tenn drops roughly back onto the bed.

He’s losing it. He is, genuinely. Everything that’s happened to this point has been his worst case scenario. Gaku can’t find out about it. He can’t. Ryuu can’t either. IDOLiSH7 can’t. What he did, and the guilt of it. This filthy secret, something he’ll have to harbor from the rest of the world for as long as he lives. The worst part of it being: Riku will have to share that same burden.

Forever.

It’s too heavy an obligation for him. It’s too toxic a responsibility. But now Riku is bound to it just as Tenn is, when Tenn didn’t want this, when Tenn has spent so much of his life trying to keep this from happening. In one night, all his years of restraint were reduced to ashes. Everything had been for nothing.

“Tenn.”

His life feels, at once, very meaningless.

“Tenn,” Gaku repeats.

Tenn sits up. Gaku inches back, giving him room.

He knows very well that Gaku won’t leave him alone unless he tells him something. So, he’ll tell him something. He won’t give any details. He won’t explain anything. And he’s not sure how well he can lie right now, so he goes for a little honesty. Tenn says, only, “Something happened between us,” and even saying just that makes him feel utterly sick.

He won’t look Gaku in the eyes, which is unlike him, and they both know it. But this is the extent of what he can do right now. And he takes the bowl of soup in his lap again, and busies himself with eating it, because he might as well.

Predictably, Gaku asks, “What happened?”

Avoiding the question will only make Gaku ask more, so Tenn decides to answer, with a pointed air of finality, “There was a problem.”

Unfortunately, Gaku cares about him, so it’s only natural that he’d be worried, or curious, or concerned about whatever led to Tenn showing up at his door in the middle of the night with the onset of a fever. That sort of thing makes sense, and Tenn understands it. So, really, he can’t blame Gaku for asking him these things. He’s the one that put himself in this situation to begin with.

Evidently, Gaku seems to grasp that he won’t be getting much more information from Tenn, and so he doesn’t prod any more regarding the problem itself.

“Is Riku still at your apartment?” he asks, instead.

Tenn hopes that Riku has somehow, magically, made it back to the dormitory by now, but more than likely he’s either still sleeping off his inebriation, or frantically searching for Tenn throughout the apartment, wondering why he was left alone. Both are situations Tenn doesn’t really want to go back to, but he knows he has to return, because leaving things like this would be even worse. As much as he wants to hide away and never see the light of day again, he has to go back, and he has to talk to Riku.

“Yes, he is,” Tenn replies, keeping his voice as steady as he can manage. “So I have to go back soon.”

“You left him by himself?”

The question cuts deep into him, like something sharp and alight, searing the edges of his skin. Yes, Tenn left Riku by himself. Tenn touched him and kissed him and lavished him in his love, and then he had abandoned him, like he could run from it all. Like he could escape from what he’d done.

And now, to go back and face him? What can he really even do? Apologize?

“Yes, he’s there alone.” That’s all he says.

“Maybe you _should_ go back.”

Tenn gives a dry laugh.

“Well, he was drunk, wasn’t he? He’s probably thrown up on the floor by now,” Gaku mutters, “I’m sure you’ll find him in a sorry state.”

“I’d hope he wouldn’t be bold enough to do something like that.”

“Now I’m worried.”

“You’re so annoying,” Tenn says under his breath. He finishes off the soup by tilting it back, and swiftly kicks his way off the bed. He doesn’t feel particularly sure on his feet. Also, he’s still wearing his exact same clothes from yesterday. In all, he feels decidedly grimy, which syncs up just wonderfully with his mental state.

“Are you really... okay?”

“You worry too much.”

Gaku scowls.

“I’m going to borrow your bath.”

With that, Tenn makes his way unsteadily toward Gaku’s bathroom and shuts the door directly behind him. And he takes a quick shower, and is forced to borrow one of Gaku’s shirts and a pair of his sweatpants. He shrugs his coat back on, and as he’s doing so, Gaku steps close and slaps a hand on the top of his head.

“Tenn, listen.”

Tenn doesn’t like that tone. “What is it?”

“Whatever it is that’s going on, I can tell you really don’t want to tell me. Or probably anyone at all.”

Well, yes. Tenn hadn’t exactly done anything to avoid that impression.

He looks up at Gaku. “Saying that isn’t going to make me tell you.”  
  
“I know that,” Gaku grumbles, “I just want to say, whatever it is, don’t feel that you have to face it alone. I obviously don’t know what the problem is, but… if I can help, tell me. Either me or Ryuu.”  
  
That’s a nice enough sentiment, and in all honesty Tenn appreciates it, but reality is too cruel to allow for something like that. This is something that can never be spoken. Because as good a person as Gaku is, he wouldn’t understand it. No one could ever understand it. How, as a boy, Tenn had cried over this. Over how wrong it was. Over how disgusting he felt. All those sorts of things. The way his stomach fluttered when Riku laughed in front of him. Reaching to hold Riku’s hand when he was scared. Wiping away his tears when he cried. A mountain of memories and Tenn’s miserable love for him, always, always, always. There was never a time in his life when he didn’t love Riku. Loving Riku is the one thing he’s known through and through since as far back as he can remember. It’s always, always been only Riku.

There’s absolutely no way he could explain the depth of that feeling to Gaku, to anyone. Because they would refuse to understand it. He knows that, because he refused to understand it too. He fought against it. He battled with himself. And in the end he resigned himself to it, but since Tenn can’t force anyone to accept it as he had, he’ll keep it to himself. For their own sake, and for Riku’s. No one else needs to be stained as the result of his immorality.

With a deep sigh, he walks to the door. And on his way out, he says only one thing.

“I wish it could be like that.”

-

Tenn has never been one for outward displays of anxiety, but in the ride back to his apartment courtesy of the agency, he finds that he can’t stop from shaking his leg or jamming his fingernails into his thighs. He’s dreading it, because he doesn’t know what he’s going to go back to. If he was able to somehow prepare for what he’s going to face, he wouldn’t be like this. But he can’t prepare if he doesn’t know what awaits him.

After getting dropped off, Tenn stands outside his apartment for far too long. Of course, Gaku was right, he shouldn’t have left Riku alone. But to have stayed there a second longer would have been torture. He doesn’t know what else he would have done. He couldn’t trust himself. He’s not even sure if he can trust himself now. But he has to, because there isn’t an alternative.

He checks his phone on the way up in the elevator, and sees that it’s already noon. He’ll be surprised if Riku isn’t up by now, but since Riku has also never gotten that drunk before, it’s very possible he’s still sleeping. Maybe he’ll just sleep the whole day away. That’d be convenient.

Tenn doesn’t hesitate once he reaches his front door. He jams his key in and pushes his way inside, desperate to get this over with. Slipping his jacket off, he’s met with silence. That doesn’t indicate anything in particular, but Tenn’s throat starts to close up in spite of that.

He walks around and searches for Riku, finding him nowhere. Which means one thing.

Tenn walks into his bedroom, and finds Riku sleeping, just as he had left him this morning.

He walks to the bedside, and his knees give out. And Tenn feels it, all of it. The bitter guilt of it all. How much he loves, loves, _loves_ Riku, every fact and flaw of him. And how he’s ruined him. He let his greed swallow him up, and put his hands on Riku. He could never expect Riku to forgive him for something that egregious.

Riku breathes so softly in his sleep.

Tenn watches him for a while. The gentle rise of his chest, the little twitches of his face. The tiny movement of his lips, like he’s about to speak to someone in his dreams. So, so pretty.

It’s very familiar. Tenn had watched Riku sleep many times as a child. Sometimes he would even laugh, like he was seeing a vision that made him happy. But when he slept in the hospital, it wasn’t like that. Whenever he was taken there, it’s because he wasn’t doing well. So his sleeps there were fretful. He would toss back and forth, his face all scrunched up, his body folding into itself. Tenn would sit at his bedside just as he sits now, and stroke Riku’s head, and tell him it would be all right. _It'll be all right, I’m here, Tenn-nii’s here. Don’t worry, Riku. Don’t worry._

He feels like crying, but he won’t let himself.

And Tenn shouldn’t, but he reaches for Riku, and brushes the back of his fingers against his cheek, and the feeling is so nostalgic to him it physically aches to remember it. It feels like a vice grip around his heart. Strangling him with the reminder of those days, how simple they seemed. Tenn and Riku, each one half of an innocent little bond. Everything back then had been so uncomplicated. An existence together as natural as breathing.

He wishes he could return to those days. He wishes he could close his eyes and open them again, and see Riku in a big open field, wearing his ugly blue sunhat, picking at the bandages on his knees. He wishes he could run at him and tackle him to the ground like he used to and hear his childish laughter. Hear him say, _Tenn-nii, stop it_ , while grinning from ear to ear. Run around, climb up trees, go hunting for bugs. And lead him around by the hand, like a reliable big brother. He always praised Riku when he did something well, and scolded him when he behaved badly. He cared for him and cherished him. When it felt like no one understood them, they understood each other. That’s how it had been between them. Perfect and honest. Something Tenn had taken for granted.

The look on Riku’s face when he left their family is something he won’t ever be able to forget. That look said, _you’ve betrayed me. You’ve lied to me_.

_You don’t love me. But I love you._

But Tenn did love him. He did love him. It’s because of that love that he pulled away from him. It was overwhelming. It was spilling over. It was drowning him, and it would kill him. So he left, but Tenn loved him. He loved him to the depths of his soul. And he loves him still, more than that, more than Tenn can even bear, adores him to the point of insanity. His precious, precious little brother, his one treasure in this world filled with emptiness. The one person he lives for, and the only one he would die for.

He’d been so beautiful last night.

Tenn doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to remember it. That's a lie, but he needs to tell himself that. He needs to beat that into his own brain. He shouldn’t enjoy it. He shouldn’t relive it. But it’s impossible.

How Riku had clung to him. How he’d moved underneath Tenn’s hands. The softness of his skin. The warmth of his mouth. The sound of his voice, calling his name and begging for it. He shouldn’t think about it. About how Riku said _Tenn-nii_ like Tenn was the only one who existed in that moment. It’ll torment him, it’ll haunt him forever. _Tenn-nii, Tenn-nii_. He won’t be able to hear that name anymore and not think of it. Riku with tears in his eyes, his skin flushed with the glow of arousal. When he came, he had cried Tenn’s name like he couldn’t even help it.

“Tenn-nii.”

Tenn sits up at once, and is instantly disoriented. He almost falls backward before regaining his bearings and realizing, embarrassingly enough, that he had fallen asleep, right there at the edge of the bed.

He scoots back, distancing himself from Riku.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku says.

“Good morning,” he answers, stiffly. He has to look ridiculous, settled awkwardly on the floor like this. He rises with difficulty. His knees aren’t too happy about his nap at the bedside.

Riku’s face flushes.

Well, any hope Tenn had of Riku conveniently forgetting everything immediately disappears. There’s no mistaking what that face means. Riku remembers. Of course. Of course he does.

Even before Tenn has a chance to consider how best to beg for forgiveness, Riku blurts out, “I think I had a really weird dream about Tenn-nii,” while fisting his hands into the blanket beneath him.

Surely not.

“What?” Tenn says. His own heart is deafening. He doesn’t know if he heard that correctly. “You what?”

“I had a dream,” Riku says, quieter. He lowers his eyes, bites down on his lip. And says, “A dream with Tenn-nii.”

“A dream?”

“Yeah, um...”

“What kind of dream?” Tenn asks, but he’s not sure if the words he’s saying are the right ones. He can’t hear himself anymore.

“Ahh, I don’t want to...” Riku hesitates, brings his hands up to his head, grips at his hair. “No, I... It’s... It was weird, it was just really weird.”

“Weird how?” He shouldn’t be prodding. He’s really pushing his luck here. But he has to know, he has to be sure.

Because this could be his salvation.

“Just, like, weird, I don’t know,” Riku stammers, growing redder still. “I-It’s not important, so...”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I... It was nothing, so don’t worry about it,” Riku says, and he smiles. But Tenn is very familiar with Riku’s smiles. So he knows this isn’t a real one. “Ah, at any rate, I was kind of annoying last night, wasn’t I? I’m sorry I got that drunk.”

Is this really his escape? His lifeline? Riku believing it was a dream? It would be a lot more honorable if Tenn would simply admit to it. Say, no, it happened. It was real, and I touched you like that. I tainted you. I hungered for you, my own brother, and I defiled you. Worst of all, I’m hopelessly in love with you.

That’d be the right thing to do. To come clean. To face his fate like he deserves. Tenn shouldn’t be granted a second chance like this.

The problem is, he isn’t nearly enough of a good person to admit to it. In fact, he isn’t a good person at all.

Tenn smiles back at him.

“Let’s wash up, okay?”

They brush their teeth next to each other in the bathroom. And Riku announces he’s going to take a bath, so Tenn agrees to start cooking them breakfast. It isn’t familiar, but it isn’t strange either. It feels normal. Like they’ve done this before. Like it’s completely typical for Riku to wake up in Tenn’s bed and typical for them to start the day together. It’s almost scary, how comfortable it is, but Tenn won’t dwell on it, or he’ll start to think strange things.

Well, he tells himself that, but it’s impossible not to dwell on it, because anything relating to Riku is impossible. Riku himself is the one impossibility of his life. His one weakness.

So while he’s milling about the kitchen doing this or that, he considers it. It’ll never happen, but it’s something that would be nice, wouldn’t it? If they could be like before. If they could get along like they used to. Waking up beside each other. Tenn making them both breakfast. The kind of food Riku likes, always, just so he can see the smile on his face when he eats. He’d probably say “you’re such a good cook, Tenn-nii!” even when Tenn isn’t. He just knows how to make things that Riku likes. He’s practiced it. Even after leaving his family, he practiced. But it could never happen, them being like that. That would be crazy. Tenn knows that. He knows how dangerous it would be. Last night, it had only taken one moment of hazy judgment to make a life-altering mistake. Living together with Riku would be a death sentence. As sweet as it is to think about doting on Riku in a shared living space, it’s just a fantasy. Tenn will just live alone forever and rot.

Because Riku thinks it was a dream. So he won’t be weighed down by what happened. To him, it was just a weird vision of his sleeping mind. Something that never really happened. Tenn will be alone forever, but Riku can go on to do whatever he wants without knowing his brother’s true nature. He can move forward. He can live his life. And it should be a relief, considering just how much Tenn was panicking about it earlier, whether Riku would be able to bear that burden. It should be a relief that Riku thinks it was a dream. He should be happy about it, shouldn’t he? It’s the only way to stay as Riku’s brother. The only way to keep Riku from pulling away from Tenn for the rest of their lives.

But there had been relief too, in spilling out all his feelings last night.

Everything that had been kept locked up had been exposed. No longer a secret. No longer threatening to bury Tenn under the weight of it. He’d laid everything out in the open and for the first time in many years, tasted deliverance. A reprieve from his internal agony. Finally, _finally_ , he did as he wanted. He unleashed everything pent up inside, and felt relief.

So it’s bittersweet, in a way, all of it. Having to go back to pretending and hiding and lying. For a few hours, he’d been freed from that. And now he’ll have to look Riku in the face again, and act like he doesn’t feel what he feels. His worst case scenario, for a little while, had been his freedom.

Then again, this is just the destiny he should have continued to expect, so there’s nothing to be done about it. Tenn is Tenn, and Riku is Riku. This is just how it is.

Tenn, of course, has made omurice for them both. He’s in the middle of plating when he hears the bathroom door open. He gave Riku some clothes to borrow before he entered the bath, and in all honesty he’s not particularly looking forward to seeing Riku wearing his things, because he’s not sure what that’ll do to him. Obviously, as kids, they wore each other’s clothes all the time. But it’s different now. Things like that aren’t as innocent anymore. And that isn’t Riku’s fault, it’s Tenn’s. It doesn’t have to mean anything, but for him, it’ll mean something. And that’s just another symptom of his warped worldview when it comes to Riku.

He fully expects to hear Riku bounding over, asking what’s for breakfast. But that doesn’t happen. He takes out some ketchup, and is just about to attempt his best drawing of a rabbit on the top of Riku’s omurice when he hears, directly behind him, “Tenn-nii.”

Tenn startles probably more than he should, but he’s on edge to begin with, so it’s not that surprising. He nearly drops the ketchup bottle but somehow manages to fumble it to his chest, gripping it tight in his hands. He whips around, ready to try and give some sort of plausible explanation for his jumpiness, but the words in his throat die there and then. This time, he really does drop the bottle, and he hears it thump and then come to rest somewhere on the floor.

But that doesn’t matter. Suddenly, nothing really matters at all. Tenn’s pulse picks up abruptly with the force of a thunderclap. The throb of it is staggering. Because he wasn’t prepared for what he would see when he turned around. So he sucks in a stifled breath, and tries to keep from caving in. At this very moment, his whole body feels like it’s on the verge of fracturing entirely.

Riku stands before him, still wet from the shower. Droplets from his hair are falling to the floor. He’s holding one of Tenn’s towels loosely to his chest. And he’s wearing nothing.

Legitimately, nothing. The only thing providing any sort of modesty is the towel held in his hand.

And then Riku lets it go.

Tenn doesn’t know what his face looks like right now. He doesn’t know anything at all. He can’t speak and he can’t move. Every thought comes to him like a bullet through his consciousness. He can’t piece together any sort of coherency. He wants to ask what’s going on, why Riku is standing in front of him like this, why he can’t fucking _move_ when he can’t bear another second of immobility. And he can’t. He can’t do anything.

Until he sees it.

It strikes him like a blow to the chest. Dull and heavy. Meeting face to face with his own greed like this, with a display so utterly blatant it can’t be fought against, it can’t be denied, because it’s there, and it’s unmistakable. The oblong shape of a bruise on Riku’s thigh, painted there with Tenn’s lips and teeth and tongue. His perfect purple work of art.

Tenn can’t even regret it, seeing it there, how beautifully it stands out on Riku’s skin, a mark of belonging. That’s what really stings the most. That he can’t feel remorse. He can’t feel apologetic. He can only stare at it, and feel the dirty pleasure of ownership. Even after letting Riku believe it was all a dream. He can’t say sorry, because he isn’t.

Riku takes one step forward, and on instinct, Tenn recoils, pressing back against the countertop. The shift is palpable. Because there’s no way Riku isn’t angry. There’s no way he’s not disappointed. But Tenn can’t read the look on Riku’s face. It doesn’t tell him anything. But all the same he feels trapped by that gaze.

For the first time since this all began, Tenn feels real fear coursing through his body.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Riku says. Even as he says that, his blank expression doesn’t change.

But Tenn won’t defend himself, because there’s no defense against it. It’s true. And he’ll let Riku say and do whatever he wants, because it’s all the truth, and Tenn won’t let himself shy away from it. He’ll let it singe him and he’ll let it wound him. Because the time for lying has ended. All that’s left now is the truth of last night, and how he couldn’t be satisfied without leaving a mark. His own possessiveness has written out this destiny.

Riku takes yet another step forward, but there’s nowhere for Tenn to back away into. He's unable to fully fight his body’s compulsion to pull away from this, however, and his back grinds into the counter. He feels hunted, and that’s something he’s never experienced. Ever. But of course, if anyone was going to make him feel that, it would be Riku.

“It wasn’t a dream, you know,” Riku says again, with very little inflection in his voice. Tenn clutches the side of the counter with his hands, feeling, suddenly, very lightheaded. Just as he felt last night, when he almost couldn’t believe what was happening. The feeling this time is a lot colder, when last night it had been burning.

Riku steps right up to him then, leaving only centimeters between their bodies. It’s too much.

“Riku,” Tenn blurts, finally, desperately.

Riku throws his arms right around Tenn’s neck, just as he had before, only hours ago, when he was crying out and pleading, when he was moving urgently under Tenn’s hands. He curls his arms a little tighter, and presses his body flush to Tenn’s own. The dampness of his skin sinks into Tenn’s clothes.

He says, soft, “When you told me you loved me, did you mean it?”

While the time for lying has ended, the time for spilling all of his guts to a sober Riku still feels laughably out of reach. Even though lying— or rather, not being willing to admit to the truth— is what led to Riku discovering that stupid hickey in the bath. Tenn can only imagine Riku’s reaction upon seeing that and realizing his own brother tried to deceive him.

And, well, Tenn did mean it. Of course he meant it. Does Riku really need to ask this, when Tenn made it so obvious? What’s the point? Why does he need to ask, when Tenn’s love is written there on the inside of his thigh? Does he need that confirmation?

With Riku so close to him like this, it would be impossible to utter anything but the truth. But it’s so hard. It’s not as simple as it was last night. Riku is fully lucid before him, his eyes bright and alert, waiting. It’s not in the heat of a very frenzied moment. It’s just them looking at each other, and Tenn knowing none of this can be passed off as just a dream anymore.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku whispers, and finally, his face changes, and he knits his eyebrows together, and his voice trembles when he asks again, “Did you mean it?”

Like he’s about to cry. But Tenn can’t do that to him.

“I meant it,” he says, instantly, and unbidden he reaches up, cups Riku’s face in his hands. Because this is a feeling that’s stronger than himself, something larger than his own being. “I meant it, Riku,” he says. “I meant it.”

And everything moves very quickly after that.

When Riku kisses him, Tenn ceases to think. All the activity that had been buzzing through his mind turns to static. Everything shuts off. And he feels only the way Riku’s lips open against his own, the way his tongue presses in, the way Riku’s breath rushes out from between both their mouths. Tenn moves only on automatic, on impulse, and he doesn’t think. He grips Riku’s face and kisses him back and doesn’t think.

Riku’s mouth is just as hot as it was before, that sensation like fire, those little eager sounds like begging without asking, those sounds only Tenn has ever heard. This mouth that only Tenn has ever tasted. And this body, that Tenn touches now. This body that only _he_ has ever seen and made to feel good. Riku pushes and pushes against him, like he can’t get close enough, like he can’t stand even those few millimeters of distance. And once again, Tenn doesn’t think, and only presses Riku ever closer by the waist.

They stand there and kiss like that for what feels like forever. And when Riku pulls back, when he breathes out his harsh breaths and when he says, “Tenn-nii, more,” Tenn zeroes back, and he registers it all at once, their situation, and what they’re doing.

His brother, sober, pressing his naked body into Tenn’s own, kissing him, initiating things himself. Reaching for Tenn on his own. Even though he isn’t drunk. Even though he knows what happened. He rocks his hips forward, sighs, “More.” Like last night.

“Riku—“ Tenn starts, but he’s not even sure what he’s going to say.

“Can you do it like before?” Riku says, like he’s nervous, like he’s scared to ask. In spite of that, he doesn’t look away. A pinkish blush starts to creep onto his cheeks. “Like how you touched before.”

“How I touched before,” Tenn repeats in a stilted voice.

But it’s obvious what he means. It’s not like he could really be referring to anything else. Because Riku is hard against him, moving his hips forward into Tenn’s, and it’s all plain what Riku wants. He wants to be touched, and he wants it to be Tenn touching him.

Tenn knows he should deny him, but as soon as Riku kissed him, as soon as Riku was the one to initiate contact, Tenn was doomed. He can’t refuse anything if it comes from the person himself.

“Why?” he lets himself ask.

Riku leans in, and Tenn closes his eyes, expecting the obvious. But instead he feels the words, feather light on his lips.

“What we did, I liked it.”

Tenn opens his eyes. Riku's mouth crooks up, the timid line of a smile.

In a whisper, “Tenn-nii made me feel really good.”

From there, Tenn drags Riku to his bedroom. He sits down upon his bed, and pulls Riku into his lap. It’s very easy to maneuver Riku. He moves him until Riku is seated on top of Tenn’s crossed legs. Somehow, Riku’s arms yet again wind around Tenn’s neck, like it’s an urge Riku can’t fight. It’s becoming a habit, holding onto his big brother like this. But Tenn has no plans to discourage that habit from forming.

Riku is still very naked and exposed in front of him, and Tenn’s heart is sick enough to enjoy that to the fullest. His hands brush over Riku’s skin, dried now from the bath. His sturdy waist and the way his hips curve out. The smooth plushness of his thighs. The fervent urgency of his mouth, moving in to meet Tenn’s own. And in between kisses, Riku saying things that Tenn could have never imagined he’d ever hear outside of a wet dream.

“Tenn-nii, touch me,” he breathes out, burning Tenn to the core. “Touch me like before.”

Tenn, up until last night, had never before seen Riku look and talk and act like this. He witnessed this for the first time only hours ago. A Riku who aches for him. A Riku who wants him. A Riku who says these shameless things, who speaks his desires with the movement of his body. That new person is pressing kiss after kiss to Tenn’s lips like he doesn’t know discipline, like he can’t be controlled. A brand new being, fizzing and alive and shooting off starlets. His eyes hold a new little universe in them.

An existence that will not be rejected or denied. That is the Riku in front of Tenn now.

Tenn is only a weak young man, so he does as he’s told. He kisses Riku back, and reaches down to touch him there, like before. He swallows the feeble moans Riku lets out, and feels Riku’s arms go just a little slack.

Riku breaks their mouths apart, and so Tenn can see him fully, his face, in the afternoon light of his room, see everything in a detail that hadn’t been there last night, in the darkness. He can see the dark flutter of Riku’s eyelashes, the searing flush up to his ears. The undulations of his hips, the muscles working beneath his skin. The many different pinks of his shoulders and chest and knees. How the sunlight coming through the window glints in his eyes. Everything, just like before, but painted in rich colors. A dazzling portrait.

Tenn wants to be greedy again.

He kisses up and down Riku’s neck, across his collarbone, up by his ear. He traces his fingers over that purple spot he made. Admiring it. Studying it. Because wouldn’t it be good to see Riku covered in these? From his neck down to his ankles, all over. The shape of Tenn’s teeth printed onto his skin. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

So while Tenn rubs Riku in his hand, he grips the back of Riku’s head and presses his mouth to the crook of his neck and shoulder. And he listens to Riku say his name, how good that sounds in his ruined voice, and dyes that single spot in the color of his love.

When he pulls back, he sees that it’s a lot bigger than he had intended. It’ll be seen. He hadn’t marked Riku in a spot that would be easy to hide. But he doesn’t think of consequences, he doesn’t think of repercussions. He thinks only of how fucking gorgeous Riku looks like this, how erotic he’s become, in those years Tenn was away, and how much more indecency Tenn can draw out of him. How to get Riku to show him the most vulgar parts of himself. Because he needs them all. Everything Riku hasn’t shown anyone else, Tenn needs all of that.

Riku’s voice brings him back to the present.

“Is there a mark?” he asks breathlessly.

“Yes,” Tenn says.

“Okay,” Riku says simply, and slows the pace of his hips down enough to catch Tenn’s attention. He fixes a rigid gaze on Tenn, and abruptly says, “I wanna feel good with Tenn-nii.”

“You— It doesn’t feel good?” Tenn asks, hesitant. He stops the movement of his hand immediately.

“No, don’t stop,” Riku whines, and he presses zealous kisses to Tenn’s cheek, to his jaw. “Tenn-nii, don’t. Don’t stop.”

“So tell me what you mean.”

“Together with Tenn-nii,” Riku cries, a thread of desperation woven into his voice. “I want Tenn-nii to feel good too.”

The feeling of shaky hands at the waistband of the sweatpants Tenn borrowed— which Gaku is definitely _never_ getting back— is impossible to misunderstand. Tenn exhales a sigh that comes from the tight cavern of his chest, and lets Riku do it. He hears the way Riku draws in a breath, at the sight of him, how ridiculously fucking hard he is, and even just that is enough to have Tenn grinding down on his own lip. He could, quite literally, cum right here, just like this. With his precious brother’s eyes on him.

But since he can’t, he won’t. Not if he’s going to do as Riku wants.

“Come here,” he says, and pulls Riku closer still, hiking him up his own lap. And there really isn’t a way to prepare for it, so Tenn doesn’t even try. He hugs Riku by the waist, and grips both their cocks in his hand, and his head falls instantly to Riku’s shoulder.

He can’t even breathe around the feeling of it. The intense heat, the blunt pleasure. Nothing like last night, when he came into his own hand in his bathroom. This can’t be compared. Because this is something so fiercely debilitating that Tenn knows, already, he can’t possibly last very long at all. At all. A sensation beyond daydreams. A feeling like it was born from a multiplication of the most filthy of all his fantasies. Something so unimaginably, overwhelmingly _good_. It’s the _best_.

“I’m gonna cum,” Tenn huffs out, almost a laugh. As much as he wants to do this for as long as he can, he just isn’t strong enough to withstand it after all. He can’t even feel embarrassed about it.

“Already?” Riku asks, and so Tenn really does laugh.

“I can’t, I’m sorry,” he answers, and raises his head off of Riku’s shoulder. He leans in to kiss him slow, and Riku melts into him, and Riku says, when their mouths part, “Tenn-nii can go first.”

So he does. And as expected, he lasts only about a minute. He tries to kiss Riku while he’s doing it, but Riku pulls back, seemingly eager to watch him fall to pieces. And if that’s what Riku wants, he’s okay with it. He gasps out, and digs his fingers into Riku’s waist, and cums right there in front of him, spilling hard onto his stomach.

He isn’t expecting it at all when Riku, without giving him a chance to catch his breath, starts moving his hips again. He’s still sensitive and weak-limbed and blissed out, but he strokes them together, and watches the relentless motions of Riku’s body, the way he moves when he’s touched a certain way.

“Feels good, Riku?” he asks, his words blurring into each other, his head dizzy, his mind a mess. “You wanna cum?”

“I wanna cum,” Riku mumbles, and something about the soft way he says that makes the pit of Tenn’s gut flare up.

“You’re so lewd,” Tenn says, unable to stop himself. “You’re so fucking lewd.”

Riku lets out a cute little sound of protest, says, “Tenn-nii,” like a reprimand. But even that is something Tenn likes to see and hear, especially when he feels like this, like he’s drunk off the sight of Riku in his lap, so he can’t help but plaster a big stupid smile on his face, and say, “Don’t get mad at Tenn-nii.”

Riku makes a sound like defeat, and thereafter hides his face in Tenn’s shoulder. He’s just as vocal as he was last night, telling Tenn to go faster or harder or do more when he needs it. Tenn lets loose all his brazenness, and teases Riku with his hands, nips him with his teeth, tells him he’s lewd and sexy and just so fatally fucking beautiful that Tenn could die. Worshiping Riku all over. Inscribing his adoration into the very fiber of him.

He says it without a thought. “I love you,” he says, as Riku whimpers into his skin. “I love you, I love you.”

His greed consumes him. He grips Riku’s hair, tugs him close to kiss him. Not being gentle anymore. Not being nice. “Riku, you’re so, so _beautiful._ ”

Riku answers only with his moans, again pitching upwards as he gets close, as Tenn takes him there. And Tenn is fine with that. He doesn’t need to speak. He only needs to feel good.

So they continue like that, and Tenn showers Riku in his affection, showers him in all his covetous feelings. Right here in Tenn’s bed, in Tenn’s apartment, Tenn envelops Riku in his love.

When Riku cums, Tenn is all too happy to observe the twitches of his body, hear the noises of his pleasure. He works him through it, and watches that fire burn hot and then extinguish. And Riku flops forward into his arms.

Several long moments pass before anyone breaks the silence. And just as Riku is coming down from that high, Tenn does too, knowing he probably said way too much, but it couldn’t be helped when it felt as good as that. He can’t be sorry about it. He got to witness something worth the worst of any consequence.

The silence ends.

“I love Tenn-nii too,” Riku sighs.

“No,” Tenn blurts, without meaning to.

Riku sits up. He looks at Tenn confused.

He messed up.

“What do you mean, no,” Riku says, sharp, his voice like a razor. All the fuzzy feelings from before vanish entirely.

“Um, no, I didn’t mean…” Tenn hesitates. He didn’t mean that. He didn’t mean to say that. He shouldn’t have said anything. “No, I don’t know, it wasn’t—“  
  
“What do you mean, no?” Riku repeats, louder. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I didn’t mean anything,” Tenn says, but it hurts him to lie. Because it did mean something. And as much as he shouldn’t have said that, it wasn’t truly an accident.

“I love Tenn-nii too,” Riku says, sounding awfully deliberate. “I love Tenn-nii. I _really_ love Tenn-nii.”

“I love you too,” Tenn offers weakly.

“Then why did you say no?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

This time, Riku pierces Tenn with the most frigid look he’s ever seen on him.

“When did Tenn-nii become such a liar?”

Tenn just barely keeps himself from screaming _I’m not a liar_ out of a misguided sense of defensiveness. It would be misguided, because he _is_ a liar. He’s been lying ever since he was first shackled by his feelings. But he can’t come right out and say that.

The point is, their love isn’t the same. And since it’s not, Riku can’t say he loves Tenn too.

Doing this with Tenn doesn’t mean Riku shares the same feeling. That’s impossible. Tenn knows it isn’t the same. He knows Riku loves him only as a brother. Only as his Tenn-nii. Tenn _knows_ that. If it’s not the same, it only hurts him to hear Riku say that. Even though Tenn has no right to feel hurt, his body won’t let him ignore it.

He lets himself be honest.

“I’ve always been a liar.” It comes out bitter and miserable. “And I’ll always be a liar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOOOOOO GUYS THE OMURICE GOT COLD
> 
> once again if u wanna talk TennRiku, please hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sympamore).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow I'm so sorry for the wait for this chapter, i suddenly had some adult responsibilities (´д｀) hopefully the next one won't take as long?!

On their birthday, Riku wants to be spoiled.

After cleaning up, after Riku put on clothes, and after Tenn reheated their omurice and they finished eating in relative silence, Riku does as he wants, and pointedly drags Tenn to the couch they had dirtied together last night, and shoves him down, and crawls on top of him.

And Tenn lets himself listen to the way Riku says _I love Tenn-nii, I love Tenn-nii_ , and touches Riku where he wants it. Spoiling him the way Riku needs it. His mind is very focused. Tenn concentrates on him. Brushes his fingers up and down the expanse of his skin. Pinches and tugs and palms at all the spots that elicit those full-body quivers, like breaking something apart. A gentle destruction. Riku’s voice is slowly, slowly, shattering his reason, and Tenn desperately doesn’t want to think about how overwhelmingly in love with him he is, and how Riku definitely doesn’t share that same feeling, and it all hurts like a peeling scab, something he can’t ignore, and so this time when Riku says “I love Tenn-nii,” while rocking his hips against Tenn’s own, Tenn yanks him down by the neck and swallows his voice with his own mouth.

He knows Riku is saying it on purpose, so Tenn will do this on purpose. And make him lose his mind enough to not be able to talk at all.

They’re both still clothed, but Tenn brings their hips together anyway, and feels the way Riku bulges against the pajama shorts he borrowed from Tenn’s closet. The way they cling to his thighs. Tenn places his hands there, squeezes the supple flesh of him, runs his hands back and forth over it like paying reverence. Like worshiping him. He opens his mouth against Riku and hears his stuttering gasps, the way his lungs shudder, and Tenn presses his thumb against the greedy mark he made there on his thigh, pushes in. Drinks in the way Riku sighs, the way his whole body goes loose and lazy.

He leans heavily against Tenn and lets out only little desperate whimpers, just those sweet insistent noises from the back of his throat, the only sounds existing in the silent space between them both, in the tiny private universe they’ve created in this moment. Tenn flutters his eyes shut and feels the tremors and hears the breaths of his entire world, held tight in his arms, moving honey slow in his lap, bringing him ever closer to a cosmos behind his eyelids, to that split-second heaven, like being reborn. This person, his sun, moon, and stars. His end and his infinity. His everything. Everything, everything, _everything_.

To the ends of the earth. To the peak of paradise, to the furthest depths of damnation. Riku, always. Forever. Until Tenn draws his final breath, always. Riku, Riku, Riku.

He can’t stand it any longer. He buries his face in the column of Riku’s neck and breathes out, “I love you so much, I love you, _I love you_.”

Riku sucks in a breath, twitches hard against Tenn’s body, but Tenn holds him fast and rocks them faster, tilts them closer. And utters the words emanating from his very soul. “Riku, _Riku_ , I love you. I love you so much, I love you so much.” And Riku moans like that, so sweet and sexy and wanting, his noises all high-pitched and pretty like a girl’s, when he’s always so careless and impulsive and boyishly charming. In Tenn’s arms, beneath Tenn’s fingers, he turns into the indecent little brother straight out of Tenn’s lifelong daydreams.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku whispers, before long. “Tenn-nii, I’m gonna— I’m gonna cum...”

“Yeah?” Tenn asks, placing his hands there on Riku’s jaw, tilting his face up with his thumbs. Tenn’s lips quirk up, tense, the hint of an eager tremble embedded there at the corner of his mouth. Because this face is just too much. The darling red of Riku’s cheeks, the glassy look of his eyes. Seeing this, having this. Tenn could never, ever tire of this.

“Yeah,” Riku says, so quiet between them. Moving so brutally slow against Tenn’s pace, hands wandering into Tenn’s hair or clutching at his shirt. Content with something comfortable and easy this time. And so Tenn forces himself to slow down and gives it to him gentle like that, holds Riku’s hips in a delicate grip and focuses on the beautiful, burning feeling.

“I’m gonna cum,” Riku says again, clenching his fingers in the fabric of Tenn’s shirt. “T-Tenn-nii...”

Tenn laughs, and it comes from a place deep in his chest, that poisonous pit at the bottom. And so he stops moving entirely, and reaches to brush his lips at the shell of Riku’s ear. Tenn feels Riku’s answering shiver in the palms of his hands.

“Should I let you?” Tenn asks.

“Let me,” Riku says, quiet, urgent. A little anxious. “Let me cum, let me.”

“Maybe I won’t,” Tenn says, but he’s only teasing, only badgering him a little. He wouldn’t leave Riku like this, not ever. He’s only playing with him a little.

It feels good, he realizes.

“Don’t,” Riku whimpers, and pulls at Tenn’s shirt, so adorably adamant. So impatiently eager to cum against his brother. “Don’t, don’t, Tenn-nii...”

He’s so, so fucking cute like this.

“Don’t what?” Tenn asks, and he tightens his hold on Riku’s hipbones, because, of course, he’s trying to move. But that doesn’t stop Riku from rolling shallowly forward, because nothing can really stop Riku when he wants to do something. So Tenn huffs a breath and digs his fingers in and does his best to pin him in place, but Riku resists him.

“I wanna cum,” Riku says, very desperately, and kisses up and down Tenn’s jaw, pressing his lips in little Os there against the sharp line, whining, pleading with him. “Tenn-nii, I wanna cum, let me cum, l-let me cum.”

“Do you want me to make you cum?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Riku sighs.

“Yeah?” Tenn blows soft against Riku’s ear, almost laughs again, at the little yelp he lets out. “You wanna cum, Riku?”

“Yes,” he repeats, and he says, like a sob, “Tenn-nii, make me cum, make me cum.”

Fuck, this is so good, this is so good, this is _so good_. Tenn thinks that, and yanks Riku’s head back by his hair, looks at his face, looks at how ruined he is all over, how much he wants it, how it shows so obviously in his eyes and his cheeks and the pout of his lips. And right there, right then, a thought like thunder cracks through to the very center of Tenn’s consciousness, to the very core of him, and he feels his scorching desire bubble upward and outward, and he imagines how so, so, _so_ viciously fucking good it will feel when he finally gets to fuck Riku, when he finally pushes into the heated tightness of him, and fucks him hard and rough and deep how he wants to. And feel his cock milked dry by his own lovely, lovely little brother.

He’s really lost focus.

Riku still mewls urgently against him. And Tenn breathes out a small laugh, leans in to peck Riku on the lips, but Riku pulls back very suddenly, and his eyes are wet, and he says, very quietly, “ _Please?_ ”

Tenn closes his eyes. That’s really, really dangerous.

This single word, this little question said so honest and pure. This voice, Tenn’s favorite. It’s something too bright and perfect. Too much, too much, Riku is just so much. Tenn would do anything, anything, if Riku asked him like that.

So he’ll do this too.

He sits up and pushes Riku flat onto his back on the couch, and grips his thighs hard enough to pull Riku’s whole body up close to his own. Their hips flush against one another’s. Riku, already starting to buck upwards, so desperate for it, and so Tenn holds him still, one hand wrapping around his slim hipbone, and the other, plunging into Riku’s pajama shorts to take hold of his leaking cock.

Riku sighs, so satisfied and pretty, so ready, rolling easily into Tenn’s hand. Tenn looks down at him, at all the reckless, provocative expressions of him and his body. He clenches his teeth, sucks in a sharp and stinging breath. And he squeezes Riku’s cock as he moves to palm over the head, and he rasps out, “Yeah, I’ll make you cum. I’ll make you feel so good, Riku.”

“ _Tenn-nii,_ ” is all Riku answers.

Tenn sits up straight, continues moving his hand, and gazes helplessly down at Riku, just staring at him while Riku lets out open-mouthed gasps and those fucking erotic girly sounds, and he says again, “I’ll make you feel so good,” while pressing his thumb against the slit of Riku’s cock. “I’ll make you cum, Riku,” Tenn says, almost like a threat. “I’ll make you feel so, _so_ good.”

He leans slightly forward, reaches with his other hand to slip beneath the fabric of the little pajama shorts, and grabs a tight handful of Riku’s ass. And he digs his nails in, so greedy, so desperate to leave any trace of himself there, in the plump muscle, and he thinks again of how badly he wants to spread Riku’s ass on his own agonizingly hard cock, how Riku would make noises even better than these, sound even more like a slutty little girl, and Tenn could hold him down and push into him so many times that he’d be able to see his own cum seep out of that pretty hole, even while he’s still buried inside him, and he could watch Riku turn into his own perfect, precious, little whore.

_Fuck_ , he thinks.

“Fuck,” Tenn exhales. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

“Tenn-nii?” Riku whispers.

Tenn tilts his head, smiles at him, even though it’s all shaky, and he asks Riku, in his steadiest possible voice, “Can we do more than this, one day?” And he swallows against the hard lump that has formed in the middle of his throat.

“Eh?”

“More than this,” Tenn repeats, but his voice cracks. “More than this, Riku.”

“More lewd things?” Riku asks, but he sounds so heartbreakingly innocent, and so Tenn can only give a strangled laugh. He can’t bring himself to corrupt him any more than this— not right now, that is. So he won’t plant any ideas in his head, and he won’t tell him anything else. It should be enough that Riku is here now, feeling good in Tenn’s hands. It should be enough.

“Nevermind,” Tenn says, and he punctuates that word with the hard slide of his hand down Riku’s shaft, a movement that makes Riku yelp. “Just show me when you cum.”

“T-Tenn...nii,” Riku gasps, “Tenn-nii, Tenn-nii, wa—“

“Don’t cover your face or anything,” Tenn says, now breathlessly working up a quick rhythm, moving a finger relentlessly against Riku’s slit, back and forth. “And don’t keep yourself from making noise.”

“Tenn-nii, w-wait,” Riku sobs, “Tenn-nii—“

“I won’t wait,” Tenn hisses, and he’s struck immediately by the power held in that simple statement, how something like flames start to lick up his back. He trembles now. Intensely.

Tenn leans forward.

“I won’t wait, Riku.”

And he doesn’t. He eats Riku up just like that. He presses their mouths together like he could breathe him in, and squeezes Riku’s cock hard in his hand, up and down, and moves his other hand further in, pulls Riku’s asscheek to the side like he could readily thrust into him, and Riku scrabbles at Tenn’s shirt, whimpers against his mouth at the unfamiliar feeling, the feeling of Tenn digging and digging his fingers in, wanting to leave a bruise, a mark, something, _something_ , because he won’t let Riku go, he _won’t_. Not after today. He will never be able to let Riku go again. Tenn will brand this entire body with his name if he has to.

And he will own every part of Nanase Riku forever.

Maybe it’s too fast for Riku. Maybe it’s not exactly the way he likes it. But that's fine. Because Tenn loves this.

Tenn breaks their mouths apart, sits up straight again, and can’t fight against how good it feels to do it like this. To move how he wants to. To touch Riku where he wants to touch. And Riku can’t fight it either, because Tenn won’t allow it. He works Riku’s cock good enough to sap every single twitch of resistance from his limbs.

“You told me to make you cum, didn’t you?” Tenn asks. “You wanted me to make you cum, right?”

Riku writhes and gasps and blinks away tears, and he says, like a hiccup, “W-Wait.”

“I told you I wouldn’t wait.”

“I wanna—“

“I told you, Riku,” Tenn says, and his tone is so familiar to them both, this scolding voice. “I told you, didn’t I?”

“Tenn-nii, let me ta—“

“ _Enough_ ,” Tenn snaps.

He jacks Riku quick and brutal right over the sensitive head of his cock, running his thumb along the slit once more, and he demands, mercilessly, “Cum for me now, Riku. _Right now_.”

And Riku is such a good, sweet boy, because he does exactly as he’s told, and he cums so gorgeous onto that buttoned pajama top, crying Tenn’s name, holding Tenn’s shirt in an utter vice grip. His thighs shaking on top of Tenn’s own, spilling hard onto himself, so exposed and vulnerable and sexy like this, so stunningly beautiful. Cumming so hard for his big brother.

Tenn breathes out.

“Good boy, Riku,” Tenn whispers, gentle, encouraging. He presses a hand to Riku’s cheek, rubs soft circles there with his thumb. “You did so good, you did so good.”

But Riku doesn’t answer him, because he can’t. He sucks in shuddery breaths through his parted mouth, and looks into Tenn’s eyes like he can’t see him at all. So throughly ruined. Just like Tenn has always, always imagined.

He wants to fuck him _so bad_.

“Pull up your shirt,” Tenn orders, and Riku moves very slow and clumsy, but he does it, and arches his back like he can’t help it, and Tenn presses a hand to Riku’s stomach and imagines it, how he’d spill into this body over and over and fill up Riku’s insides until they grew used to the feel of his cock. And then he could slide so easy into him whenever he wants, into that body that remembers his shape. Because that’s what he’s always wanted. To mark Riku in the most definitive way possible. To make Riku his own.

Tenn pulls his sweatpants down over his cock and watches Riku’s face go red, a bright blushing pigment all the way up to his ears. Because he’s, obviously, really, _really_ hard. Thinking about those things, about pushing Riku’s legs apart and making his brother cum on his cock, thinking about _all those things_ he had stored away, had locked down deep. The last time Tenn had thought about it, he had only been at Kujo’s place for a couple of years. It had been one of those bitterly lonely days, and he’d locked himself in his room and let himself think of Riku like that for the last time. He indulged in the disgust, in the wrongness, in the shameful hatred he felt toward himself, and he wrung his cock in his hand pretending it was Riku’s insides. And he breathed out Riku’s name like a prayer. And he thought of how pretty Riku would be, how lovely he would look underneath him, and Tenn came over and over that night with those images burning his mind. And by the morning, he told himself he would never let this happen again. That would be the last time.

And it had been. Until last night, until right now.

Tenn looks down at Riku. He watches his mouth, his eyes, his chest, his fingers. And he tugs his own cock and floods his consciousness with all those dirty, vulgar thoughts. And he thinks again and again, _I want to fuck you, I want to fuck you._

“Riku,” he gasps. But he won’t say it. He’ll think it, for now. “Riku, Riku, Riku.” _Let me fuck you till you can’t stand._

Riku’s so cute. He’s so pretty. He’s so sweet. All of that. Riku reaches for Tenn, but Tenn is sitting back, he’s too far. Tenn leans closer, grabs one of Riku’s hands, presses a kiss to the palm. And he breathes his name again, and he fills that word with all his feelings. “ _Riku_.”

“Tenn-nii, I love you,” Riku whispers.

Ahh, Tenn can’t stand it. He won’t fight it.

“I love you too,” he says, strained through his throat. He squeezes Riku’s hand, brings it to his cheek. “I love you too, I love you.”

“I love Tenn-nii so much,” Riku says, rising on one elbow, leaning forward desperately. “T-Tenn-nii, I—“

“No, Riku.” Tenn flattens a hand on Riku’s chest, presses him back. But Riku holds firm against him.

“I love you,” Riku says. He’s crying, and yanking at Tenn’s shirt with his hand, and his tears are falling fast, and he looks so adorable like this that Tenn thinks his very heart could melt. “Tenn-nii, I love you, I love you, so kiss me—“ And he grips so hard to Tenn’s shirt even while his hand shakes. “Kiss me, kiss me, _kiss me_.”

Tenn grips Riku’s jaw in one hand and pushes their mouths together.

If Tenn could swallow up Riku’s soul, he would. Really. If he could own him like that, he would. But he can’t, so he can only do this. And when he feels Riku reach down to touch him, Tenn surges forward and bites Riku’s lip between his teeth.

And after only a few strokes from his brother’s hand, he cums. He pulls their mouths apart, thrusts Riku back onto the sofa, and cums over Riku’s bare chest. And he wraps his hand around Riku’s own, and rocks his hips into that tight grip. Spilling hot onto his brother’s body.

Riku twitches and breathes out and watches him, watches those spurts cover his torso, his hand squeezing Tenn hard enough to force everything out of him, and when it stops, when Tenn inhales and when he stops moving, he looks down at the mess he’s made of Riku, at how good he looks covered in the stark evidence of his desire.

Tenn presses a wet hand to Riku’s chest. He thumbs over a nipple and hears that needy noise from him, hears his name called sweetly, and decides, then, to do this. To swipe two fingers down Riku’s body, collect a thick glob of that pearly stickiness on his fingertips. And he takes Riku’s face in his other hand, and pushes those fingers into his brother’s mouth.

Riku, at first, closes his eyes, tries to turn away. But Tenn holds him steady, and says, low and dark and sharp:

“Riku, swallow it.”

Riku’s legs kick up, and his eyes look right into Tenn’s, and they’re afraid and confused. And that’s okay. Tenn has sullied him irrevocably, and he’ll continue doing so. And he’ll teach him everything. Everything that Tenn has fantasized until now, he’ll teach Riku about all of that.

He’s afraid now, but he’ll get used to it. Tenn will make sure of that.

“This is how I taste, you know,” he says, but he can’t hear himself speak. He can’t hear anything. “Like this, Riku.”

Seconds pass. And then Tenn feels it; Riku’s mouth closing in, his tongue pushing upwards. And then the hot pressure of a tense little swallow.

Tenn pulls his fingers out, and Riku gasps inward.

He’s so good. He’s really so good, he’s so perfect, so obedient. Tenn presses his forehead against Riku’s, and he closes his eyes and feels them take the same breaths.

Riku, again, _again_ , curls his thin arms around Tenn’s neck.

“Tenn-nii,” he whispers.

“Riku,” Tenn answers.

“I love you, Tenn-nii.”

“Riku.”

“Like that.”

Tenn opens his eyes. He pulls back. He stares down at Riku, who keeps his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“How Tenn-nii loves me,” Riku says in a trembling voice. “That’s how I love Tenn-nii.”

A sinking feeling begins to drop in Tenn’s chest.

“No,” he says.

“I do,” Riku says.

“No,” Tenn says again, and tries to pull himself away, but Riku’s hold on his neck is stubborn, and he can’t move too far. He seizes Riku’s arms, and pulls.

“Listen to me,” Riku cries, and he opens his eyes, and fights against Tenn’s hands, and before Tenn realizes, Riku has crossed his ankles behind Tenn’s hips, locking him in. Tenn lets out a frustrated sound, and scrabbles at Riku’s legs.

Tenn won’t listen. He won’t believe this. He won’t entertain this idea, because Riku can’t possibly mean it. This is so utterly absurd. He let Riku say what he wanted a few minutes ago, and now he’s voicing something impossible. So, no. Even if it’s Riku, Tenn will not, _will not_ listen.

He won’t give himself that hope.

“Let go of me, Riku,” he bites out, even as Riku’s hold on him tightens everywhere. He feels suffocated. He can hardly move. Riku’s hair is poking at his face, so he can’t particularly see well, either. He’s using only his hands to try and release himself from Riku’s desperate grasp, and he’s failing.

“No,” Riku says, like a whine. “No, I won’t.”

“Let go. Let go right now.” Pulling at the fabric of Riku’s pajamas does nothing. Their bodies are similar, so Tenn has no advantage here. Not like when they were kids, and Riku was small and sickly and weak. And Tenn could pick him up and carry him to tuck him into bed. This Riku has built up his muscle, has strengthened his resolve. This Riku holds his own brother in a death grip and says he loves him.

Like _that_.

Tenn doesn’t panic. Often. Because he isn’t that kind of person. Someone who panics. But, as always, Riku is his eternal weakness. So he feels that bitter, empty feeling start to rise in the confines of his ribcage and creep upward like a disease. It’s going to strangle him if he doesn’t pull away _immediately_.

“Fucking let go of me,” Tenn spits, and he’s yelling now, and he reaches up to crush a hand into Riku’s hair. He yanks hard, and Riku cries out. “Let go of me _right now_ , Riku!”

“No!” Riku sobs, and it must hurt, and it must be hard, but he holds on with a brutal force, his feet digging hard into Tenn’s back, his arms laced tightly around Tenn’s neck, his whole body vibrating with the effort of it all. Tenn pulls his hair harder. Riku shouts, but doesn’t let up even a bit. This is fucking awful.

“You little shit,” Tenn screams, finally reaching his breaking point, finally feeling the brunt of his panic. His throat is closing up. His hands are shaking. He pulls Riku’s hair hard enough to feel a few strands come off into his fingers. “I’m going to kill you,” he says, his voice cracking. “I’m going to fucking—“

“Tenn-nii's in love with me,” Riku cries, and everything stops.

Everything.

Tenn’s hand falls from Riku’s hair to the couch beside his head. He feels his own heartbeat like a train in his ears. The echo of Riku’s words plays over and over and over and over in his head. And Tenn breathes in and out and says nothing.

Nothing.

“Tenn-nii is in love with me.” Riku repeats that, quieter. And his voice doesn’t waver. Even though he’s crying, he says this like the truth. “I _know_ it, Tenn-nii. I know it.”

But he can’t know that. He can’t know that. Tenn hasn’t told him. Tenn hasn’t said anything. He can’t know that.

Riku _cannot_ know that.

“I’m not stupid,” Riku says. “Even though Tenn-nii might think so. I’m not, you know. I’m not stupid, Tenn-nii. I can see it. I can feel it, and I know it. And even if Tenn-nii says no, I know that’s not true. I _know_ it, Tenn-nii.”

Tenn doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything. Riku breathes out hard, and continues.

“Tenn-nii has always been worrying about me, right? Tenn-nii has always loved me more than anyone, right? I know it, Tenn-nii. When Tenn-nii kisses me, I can feel it. Even though Tenn-nii is always mean to me, you don’t hate me. Tenn-nii touches me. Tenn-nii makes me feel good. Tenn-nii doesn’t do that for anyone else, right? Just me, right? Because Tenn-nii loves me. Because Tenn-nii is in love with me.”

Finally.

Finally, Tenn whispers, “Riku.”

Riku’s hold relaxes. His arms draw back, and his hands move to cup Tenn’s face. And he pulls Tenn close and kisses him so slow, letting out gentle little noises, whispering love, breathing Tenn’s name like always. Tenn kisses back without thinking.

“I love you,” Riku sighs, so, so soft and sexy. “Tenn-nii, tell me, tell me.”

“Riku...”

“ _Tell me._ ”

This boy is really his undoing.

“Riku,” Tenn says, and he lets himself hunger again, and he reaches for both their spent cocks, grabs them in a slippery hand and tugs lazily, just enough to feel the heated edge, the smoldering pressure, and Riku whimpers helplessly against his mouth and still tries to speak, begs him, “Tell me, tell me, tell me,” and clenches his legs tighter over Tenn’s back. “Tell me, Tenn-nii, _please_.”

“Cum for me again,” Tenn says, and Riku looks at him, glassy-eyed and aching, but he resigns himself to the order, and bites down hard on his lip and once again, shakes his hips and tries to cum for his doting older brother.

But it’s harder this time. Tenn makes it so. He squeezes hard at the base of Riku’s cock, forces him to rock forward like that. He tells him to hurry, to do it before he changes his mind, and Riku moves so brazen, selfishly seeking the peak of pleasure, thrusting his hips up into Tenn’s fist, almost screaming for it, crying out hard from the back of his throat for that red-hot release. Wailing and pleading so preciously. All to hear Tenn admit it. Admit everything. Tenn is twisted enough to enjoy this scenario, to savor the way Riku abandons his reason. There is no reasoning with this. They’re past that. So Tenn leans into all of his debauched inclinations, and _has_ this.

“You’re so pretty,” he says, like a delirious man, drunk off the sight of Riku below him. “You know that? You know how pretty you are?”

Riku shakes his head no, and looks away, shy, and mumbles something from behind his hand, probably some kind of skepticism, but Tenn won’t let him doubt it. He’ll make him believe it.

“You’re the most beautiful in the whole world,” he says, running his fingers up and down Riku’s cheek, just marveling at him, just indulging in this. “You’re the prettiest, Riku.”

“Th-That’s not...”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Um...”

“You don’t.”

“No, no, Tenn-nii, I—“

Tenn clenches his fingers over the head of Riku’s cock, makes him moan, a squeaky, broken little noise. And he says, in a heavy breath, “I can say that, because I’ve always been watching you. Like you said. I’ve always been worrying about you. I know how beautiful you are. I know everything, Riku.”

“T-Tenn-nii...”

“Don’t show anyone else,” Tenn says, leaving no room for rebuttal, no space for confusion. “Don’t show anyone.”

“I—I won’t, Tenn-nii, I won’t—“

“Anyone,” Tenn hisses. “ _Anyone_.”

“No, no, I won’t, I won’t,” Riku cries, smoothing his hands over Tenn’s face, like trying to calm him, like pressing reassurance into his skin. “Never, never, I won’t.”

“Promise me,” Tenn says, “Riku, promise me.”

“I promise, I promise. No one, no one but Tenn-nii.”

“No one but me,” Tenn answers.

“No one but Tenn-nii,” Riku repeats, and his eyes are full of tears, and every time he blinks, he scatters those little diamonds from his eyelashes. He holds Tenn’s face firm in his hands. “Only Tenn-nii, only Tenn-nii.”

Tenn is satisfied with that. So he rewards him. He brings their cocks together again, rubbing a slick hand over the heads, pressing into the slit that Riku likes so much, and digs his fingers into Riku’s thigh, tugs it close, and rocks deep and forceful into his hand, jostling Riku’s body up the couch with every sharp thrust, because this is how he would do it. This is how he’d fuck him, rough and ravenous, this is how he’d hold him down and take him apart. Not yet, but soon. Soon, soon, or he’ll go crazy. He won’t be able to breathe without it.

It’s so good. It’s so, so good. Tenn lets himself moan, lets himself curse under his breath and move a little faster, exhaling harshly at the accumulating wetness of them both, leaking and leaking into his fist, making it harder to keep a solid grip. Riku is so ruined, so destroyed beneath the pleasure of it, tossing his head to and fro like it’s too much, and it is. It’s everything, it’s everything. He squeals high and loud like a perfect slut, sobbing incoherencies, pieces of words all jumbled together, dissolving into a mess of sweet sounds and heavy breaths. Throwing his legs open wide and shoving his hips upward into Tenn’s hand. Shaking and shattering and splintering. Like a cycle of destruction and rebirth. Every time, being born again under Tenn’s hands. Rising like the most deadly of all the stars in the galaxy. Burning every universe to cinders.

“Cum with me,” Riku says, clear and loud, a demand. “Tenn-nii, cum with me, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna _cum_.”

“Yeah,” Tenn breathes. “Okay.”

Tenn looks down at the sight of Riku’s chest, still covered in the proof of him, the webs of stickiness, and he runs his hand from Riku’s collarbone down, streaking his torso, leaving that temporary imprint there.

Tenn stares into Riku’s eyes and thinks, _T_ _his is beauty_.

It’s easy to get there, to the end, when it feels as good as this. Their hips moving in tandem, reaching for that moment together, the pinnacle of lust, of love. That’s how it is for them right now, holding each other like they’ve never been apart, stealing the breaths from each other’s mouths, watching each other like this is the only thing in the world. Each consuming the other. Tenn and Riku, Riku and Tenn. Their most natural state of existence.

“Does Tenn-nii love me?” Riku whispers, a question full of fear. He shudders at all the spots where Tenn touches him. “Will Tenn-nii tell me?”

“I love you,” Tenn says, through a kiss. “I love you, Riku.”

“ _Tell me_ ,” Riku says again. Insistent. Begging. “ _Please_.”

“Do you love me?” Tenn asks instead. “Riku?”

“I do, I love Tenn-nii,” Riku cries, “Ahh, _ahhh_ , Tenn-nii, I’m gonna—“

“Now?” he asks.

And Riku sobs, “Now, now, _now_.”

And Tenn presses closer to him and moves his hand in that particular way, and takes them there together.

They cum one after the other. Tenn cries out and feels this orgasm more than the ones before it, a sensation that rockets from his gut to his extremities, and he spills over Riku’s body in jolts. Riku spasms below him, hiccuping and gasping, his legs twitching fretfully, knocking into Tenn’s sides. Tenn rides them through it, gradually slowing his hand, doing it carefully, and then letting go, throwing his elbows against the couch on either side of Riku’s head, holding up his own body. And he trembles with the effort of it, fights the urge to collapse and fall into darkness.

Because he needs to say it.

Tenn raises his head, and Riku looks at him. Riku’s forehead is damp with sweat, and his eyes are red-rimmed and half-open. He takes rapid breaths through bitten lips. His hair sticks to his face at odd angles.

And he’s everything.

“I’m in love with you,” Tenn breathes.

And then, a comfortable silence. Riku tugs Tenn close again, and he closes his eyes and nuzzles their noses together, and they stay like that, even as Tenn’s arms scream with the pain of holding himself up like this. They stay like that for so long that Tenn has to let himself collapse, and they bury their faces in one another’s warmth. Stealing kisses as their drowsiness sets in, as their movements grow more and more languid. It’s perfect. Everything about it, everything about him. A perfection that Tenn never let himself believe in. It’s here now, lovely and happy and snug in his arms. Like a dream. Like an impossibility.

When they wake up again, it’s evening. Riku wakes up first, and Tenn feels him shaking his arm, and so he blinks upward at a beautiful face, and he reaches for it and smiles absently. And Riku clutches his hand and brings it to his lips and says, _Let’s take a bath together._

Tenn doesn’t remember the last time he and Riku had a bath, but it was definitely around the ages of three or four. Something like that. It’ll be hard for both of them to fit into the tub now, but that doesn’t matter. Riku wants to, so Tenn will do it.

While he fills up the tub, Riku comes into the bathroom, holding Tenn’s shower caddy. He must have gotten some of reason back, at least enough to be shy, because he holds the caddy up to his face and blurts, “Does Tenn-nii still want to? We don’t have to. If Tenn-nii wants to take a bath alone, I don’t mind it because I know Tenn-nii is—“

“Riku,” Tenn says, before he can get too far.

Riku lowers the caddy, peeking out from behind it.

Tenn grins. “You’re so cute.”

Because he can say these things now. These things he’s always thought when looking at Riku, when watching him from afar, when speaking to him in passing. His mind was always racing, always tormented by his emotions. But he never let that show on his face. He would look Riku dead in the eyes and call him lazy and unprofessional even as his head filled with a desperate chant of _I love you so much, I love you so much_. Mind, heart, and body; every component so separate from the other. Uniting the three is very foreign to Tenn. That he can just _say_ these things out loud. Speak the words from his core. Tell Riku everything.

“I’m not cute...” Riku mumbles, raising the caddy once more.

“Stop it. Give me that.” Tenn takes the caddy from his hands and places it on the floor next to the tub. And without warning, he drags Riku close by his pajama shirt and presses a kiss to the side of his neck.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku stammers, hands fumbling against Tenn’s back.

“You’re cute,” Tenn says. Firmly. “You’re cute, Riku.”

“Th-That’s...”

“Don’t say you aren’t.”

“But—“

“That’s enough. Don’t say that.”

Riku goes quiet. And then his hands go up, circle around Tenn’s body. And he whispers, “Okay, Tenn-nii.”

With that, Tenn pulls back to undress him. He unbuttons the shirt, he pulls down Riku’s shorts. And when he’s done, he lets Riku do the same for him. He raises his arms skyward, and Riku clumsily tugs the shirt off his body. And then he fiddles with the band of the sweatpants, his fingers quivering, and in a few stuttered movements he pulls them down, and they pool at Tenn’s feet. And Tenn steps out of them, and sees Riku staring.

Well, this is a first, after all. Riku has never seen him completely exposed like this. As small children, sure. But not since then. So it’s new for him. For them both. Riku is the only person he would ever allow to see this.

Riku inches closer. In so many ways, they’re the same. Their bodies are so similar. Their shoulders, their arms, their legs. They’re so alike. Riku laces the fingers of one hand with Tenn’s own, and Tenn feels the movement like touching a mirror image. Because their hands are the same size. It’s like looking at a striking scarlet reflection of himself. But Riku is more than that. Riku is light and love and virtue. Riku is every good thing in the world. And Tenn is everything else.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku murmurs.

“Hmm?”

“Um...”

“What is it?”

“I just... Um...”

“Ah, wait,” Tenn says, and he moves over to the tub. “It’s full.”

He switches off the water, and turns to Riku.

"I just love Tenn-nii so much," Riku blurts. He blushes like a teenager.

Tenn smiles. He holds out a hand.

“Come on,” he instructs.

And Riku follows him in.

Water laps out onto the floor as they step in, as they sit back on their knees, facing each other. The tub is so small Tenn almost starts to laugh. He cups water in his hands and pours it gently over Riku’s head, watching it cascade over his hair and face and shoulders, and Riku only blinks at him and looks away, still so shy. He says nothing as Tenn begins shampooing his hair, only sits dutifully still, his eyes closed. And then Tenn rinses him off, and lathers up a washcloth, and moves on to all the tainted spots on his body.

He swipes the washcloth over Riku’s chest, over one of his nipples, and Riku moans.

Tenn stops.

And Riku opens his eyes and blushes so hard and sputters out confused words, and then regains enough composure to cry, “I can’t help it.”

Tenn laughs.

“Tenn- _nii_ ,” Riku whines, letting out such pitiful, embarrassed sounds, covering his chest with his arms, scooting back against the tub’s wall. “Tenn-nii, so mean, I don’t like it, I don’t like when Tenn-nii is—“

“I’m not being mean,” Tenn says.

Riku pouts. And Tenn feels the lightness in his chest reach a capacity that doesn’t feel possible.

It could always be like, right? So easy like this. Could they always stay together just like this? And walk the future beside one another? Could the two of them create their own story? Could it really, truly, always be them both?

Kujo Tenn and Nanase Riku. Always.

Tenn knows he shouldn’t, but he wants to believe in that. He wants it to be like that. He wants to do these sort of things every day. Talk this way whenever he wants. Reach out to touch Riku when he feels like it, and feel the comfort of his presence. Holding him close like a treasure. His own little jewel, his little ruby, held delicately in his hands. Could it be like that?

After a few moments of coaxing Riku back from the wall, they continue. Tenn finishes washing him off, and then Riku pipes up nervously, says he wants to do the same. And so Tenn lets him. And Riku’s fingers tremble in his hair while he shampoos and rinses, and Tenn sits contently in the peace of it.

In this moment, he is supremely happy to be alive.

They spend so long in the bath, kissing and touching each other, that Riku falls asleep there, his head nestled on Tenn’s shoulder. Tenn carries him out, and takes him directly to his bedroom. Once there, he dries and clothes them both. Once again, maneuvering a sleeping Riku into his pajamas. He tucks the blanket up to Riku’s chin.

And he leans in to press a kiss to Riku’s lips.

He whispers good night, switches off the lights, and heads to the living room. He can’t bring himself to sleep just yet. He grabs his phone, turns on the TV, and sits idly on the couch, going through all of his missed text messages.

He has to go back to work tomorrow. Riku does too. It’s a depressing reminder that this little incident was fleeting. Inevitably, they’ll return to their lives. Will everything go back to how it was before?

Tenn knows the answer, of course.

After having this, he can’t live without him. He can’t live without Riku. He would really and truly die. He knows that. He’d die without him.

After tasting the inside of Riku’s mouth, after pleasuring him like a lover. After exposing his heart like peeling back the layers of his chest. Hearing Riku gasp out and beg for him. Hearing him say he loves Tenn. _I love Tenn-nii, I love Tenn-nii_. All while crying and bucking his hips _._ Every single damned thing. It’s all replaying in Tenn’s mind—every touch, every breath, every word. Everything. Riku in the bathtub, reaching under the water to tug at Tenn’s cock, whispering naughty little things, learning so quickly already, how to be a lewd boy. Tenn saying that, calling him a lewd boy, calling him dirty and sexy and pretty. Pushing him against the wall and shoving his tongue into Riku’s mouth. Riku pleading for more, always so receptive, so willing. After cumming a couple of times, he’d smiled lazily at Tenn and said, “ _I love doing this with Tenn-nii._ ”

Nothing in the world compares to the feeling of Riku in his arms, Riku telling him he loves him. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Tenn thumbs through messages from Gaku and Ryuu, mostly asking for his whereabouts. He hadn’t responded to a single text all day, too preoccupied with Riku to even check his phone once. He answers belatedly, saying only that he was home today.

After that, he notices a text from a number he doesn’t recognize.

He opens it.

The first sentence is enough to make his pulse jump, to make his mouth go dry.

_This is Izumi Iori._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is anyone else absolutely dying at I7 Second Beat? there's so much drama i feel like i'm having a heart attack when i watch it
> 
> also i managed to snag some of the TennRiku Decotto goods and now i've ascended.  
> as always pls talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sympamore).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep taking a long time between chaps without meaning to (;´Д`) gomen

_Please make sure Nanase-san arrives on time for our photoshoot tomorrow._

_I trust you will not allow him to be late._

That night, Tenn has a nightmare about Izumi Iori.

Oddly, he’s being strangled. It feels like it goes on for hours. Like, for whatever reason, Izumi can’t actually cut off his breath. He holds Tenn’s neck in a grip loose enough to be annoying. Because Tenn still breathes, even through this. The sides of his neck go red and raw under Izumi’s hands, and he doesn’t move to push him away. He lies there with Izumi on top of him and lets it happen. Like it’s supposed to happen. Even when nothing comes of it. Even when he thinks, distantly, _Get this over with._

That’s when he realizes.

Izumi Iori isn’t trying to kill him at all.

He's being punished.

-

Tenn awakens moments later to the feeling right out of his nightmare.

Of course, Tenn’s bed wasn’t actually built to accommodate more than one person. He knows that, but even after turning off the TV last night and heading to his bedroom, he couldn’t bring himself to set out his futon. He’d walked over to Riku sleeping soundly in his own bed, and yearned for him. So he’d pushed him over just slightly, and crawled onto the sliver left for him. And he’d fallen asleep like that, at the very edge of his bed, right next to his one and only love.

Though, overnight, it appears a shift took place.

Tenn’s face is squished into Riku’s chest, making it relatively hard to breathe. Riku’s arms are wound tightly round his neck, his leg wrapped over Tenn’s hip, and it fills him with conflicting emotions for just a second, because he feels, suddenly, very small and very trapped, but the thumping emanating from his chest is undeniable. Because of course he’d love this, because it’s Riku. And the thought of waking up like this one day had seemed so unreachable. So unattainable. His faraway fantasy. And here he is.

Every day, Tenn loves him more.

Still, Izumi’s warning sits quite heavy in his mind, and under no circumstances would he ever interfere with Riku’s work. He only hopes it’s still early enough to get to the studio on time. Tenn didn’t set an alarm last night, which he starts to regret, immediately.

“Riku,” he tries, but it comes out muffled against Riku’s pajamas.

Naturally, Riku makes no response whatsoever.

Tenn begins pulling away from him, which turns out to be much easier than it was yesterday, when they were screaming at each other. “Riku,” he tries again.

He sits up in bed, reaches for his phone, left on the nightstand. And he breathes out. Because it’s only 7:00 AM. Riku has to be at the studio in an hour. And that gives him time to make Riku breakfast and get him ready.

This time, he shakes Riku’s shoulder. “Riku,” he says. And Riku starts to stir. “Riku.”

Riku’s eyes flutter open. Tenn looks at him. And Riku smiles, and says, “Tenn-nii.”

Tenn’s breath catches in his throat.

“Good morning,” Riku whispers.

“Good morning,” Tenn chokes out.

Riku blinks up at him. He wraps an arm around Tenn’s waist, snuggles close. And he looks entirely determined to _not_ get out of bed.

But Tenn simply can’t allow—

“I’m tired,” Riku sighs, and his eyes slip shut, and he lets out gentle breaths, like he’s just going to go back to sleep, like he’s just going to ignore that he has obligations today. Like he thinks Tenn will let him do this.

“Riku,” Tenn says.

“Nn.”

“Riku, you have go to the studio today.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says. And nothing else.

Tenn waits. And Riku makes no attempt to move.

This is getting increasingly difficult, Tenn realizes.

“You have to be there in an hour. I’ll make you breakfast, so let’s get up.”

“An hour,” Riku hums.

“Yes.”

“That’s enough time,” Riku says, snuggling closer still.

“Riku, you can’t be late,” Tenn insists, and tries now to pull Riku’s arm from around his waist. “Let’s get you ready.”

“Tenn-nii doesn’t work today?”

“I work later,” Tenn answers, curt. He manages to jerk Riku’s arm away, and moves to stand. “Riku, you really can’t be—“

He’s grabbed from behind the collar of his shirt, and dragged back. He drops unceremoniously onto the bed, and stares up at where Riku now looks down at him.

“Hey,” Riku says, in a very certain, specific tone, and Tenn’s pulse dips.

“No,” he says, instantly.

“Tenn-nii, we—“

“ _No_ ,” Tenn repeats, louder.

“We still—“

“ _Riku_.”

“—Have an hour,” Riku finishes, meekly.

So, there’ll be things like this. This isn’t particularly a bad problem to have, as far as Tenn is concerned. His adolescent mind burned for things like this. He imagined Riku this way. He dreamed of illicit touches and dangerous questions, and he let himself think about all the things he’d do. All the places he’d touch him. He pictured a Riku like this in his best fantasies, a needy, petulant figure, tempting him in all those little ways. A personified hyperbole, a vision straight from the most banal of all the porn he’s ever seen. But it’s different like this.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku whispers, and it hits right at the core of him, right at the point where his heart throbs the hardest. Like firing an arrow straight on, like the arrowhead piercing the target. Tenn clenches his hands into fists.

“Riku,” he says, but it’s useless.

“ _Please_ ,” Riku breathes out, and that ends it.

So Tenn stands up. He pulls Riku to the edge of his bed, makes him sit there, his feet flat on the floor. And he looks Riku in the eye, sinks to his knees, and pushes his brother’s legs apart.

“Oh,” Riku breathes.

Tenn looks at him, and pushes his fingers beneath the waistband of his pajamas, just gently, just slowly like that. And Riku’s hands come up to cover his face, but he peers at Tenn through his fingers, his inhales and exhales picking up speed, his thighs starting to jolt a bit, where Tenn’s arms knock against them. And as much as Tenn wants to, he can’t take his time. He’ll do this quickly, and then send Riku on his way. And then get ready for his own work, and pretend like this never happened, pretend like he’s never done a single wrong thing in his life.

It’s maddening.

But even more maddening than that is the way one of Riku’s legs hooks over his shoulder, his heel pushing into Tenn’s back. How he whispers, “Before I don’t see Tenn-nii again, I wanted to.” How he squeaks when Tenn pulls his half-hard cock free from his pajamas, rolling it easily in his hand. These snapshots of him that Tenn will replay in his mind until he and Riku can be together again like this. Like they’re meant to be. Just the two of them, devouring one another.

But the world won’t allow for something like that, will it? The world wouldn’t be so kind.

Even knowing that, Tenn won’t be deterred. There is nothing, now, that will prevent him from doing these things. He will defy everything if it means he can have this. Have Riku the way he wants to.

And so he does this now, and in one movement, he brings Riku’s cock to his mouth, and takes him down deep.

Riku yells his name, and his hands fly into Tenn’s hair, gripping hard enough to cause pain, but that’s fine, and Tenn likes it. He sucks long and hard, pulling his head back, tongue laving over the head of Riku’s cock, moving against the slit, making Riku shake like he hasn’t before, making him cry, over and over, “I can’t, I can’t, _I can’t—_ “ until Tenn pulls back just enough to feel a little wet string between his mouth and Riku’s cockhead. And he looks up at Riku and sees only him, a vision in which only Riku exists and everything else melts away, and Tenn lives and breathes to pour his worship over every inch of his brother’s body, and cover him in it, and envelop him.

_My most adored_ , he thinks, _My only love_.

And as vulgar as it is, something about it is poetic. The sugary sweet sounds from Riku’s mouth, pressed into his palm, trying to keep Tenn from hearing them, but Tenn hears them. Tenn moves his mouth and tastes his own brother on his tongue, and it’s something he’s never done before, but of course, he’s thought of it. He’s thought of everything, and imagined Riku in every way. And those thoughts have become facts. They’ve become reality. They’ve risen from their home in the purgatory of Tenn’s mind, and come to life. Tenn can feel the way Riku throbs, sense the way he trembles. He grips Riku’s thighs and listens to the little whines he lets out when Tenn bobs his head. And it’s as perfect as he imagined, and when he grabs at the base of Riku’s cock and starts to jerk his hand, Riku’s heel jams into the spot between Tenn’s shoulder blades, and Tenn hears his restrain fall completely apart.

And Riku sobs, “Tenn-nii, too much, too _much_ ,” even while tugging Tenn’s head closer, even while digging so impatiently into Tenn’s back. Tenn presses his lips to Riku’s shaft, breathes hard against it. And he realizes, very suddenly, that he’s been stroking himself through his own pajamas, leaving a damp imprint standing out. Riku gasps when Tenn takes him down again, curling the fingers of one hand into the fabric of the bedsheets. And Tenn watches him so attentively, so affectionately, because Riku is beautiful like this too, always so beautiful. And since they’re doing this now, before parting, he’ll give himself a little relief. So while he mouths over all of Riku’s sensitive spots, licks into the slit, Tenn pushes his hand into his underwear and starts to touch himself.

And he loses track of time, doing this with him. He shudders at the feeling of Riku’s nails digging into his scalp, and listens to Riku’s voice above the wet sounds. He teases his tongue along the underside of Riku’s shaft, and bites back a smile at the little squeak given in reply. He’s learning, quickly, what it sounds like when Riku feels good, when he feels _really_ good. When he’s about to cum. And Tenn’s learning what his own voice sounds like too; how, instinctively, his mouth forms that name, like it’s the only word he knows. Like it’s his own creation, those two tiny syllables on his tongue, carried on his breath to drift to his ears and hang over his mind like a fog. He wants to make it so that no one else knows that name. He wants to make it so no one else utters it again. A word to leave only his mouth. A name only he can speak out loud. So that he alone sees his brother turn around when he says it. And see that face, enjoy the sunshine of his eyes, the heart-wrenching brilliance of his perfect smile. Tenn would rip Riku’s name from everyone’s memories, if he could. He’d rip Riku from the world entirely, if only he was able.

He is able. Which he knows, but he won’t let himself. And he leaves it at that, always. But to think of Riku locked away here forever, to picture him trapped beneath Tenn’s hands, is an image too enticing to completely ignore. Tenn tells himself he doesn’t like to think about it, but that isn’t the truth. Because he loves to think about it. He _loves_ it.

Tenn’s fingers find their way to Riku’s ankle, and they wrap there, curled around the elegant, bony structure, feeling the way Riku flexes, the way his foot tenses against the floor below. Still working his own mouth, still listening to Riku’s voice. And then he squeezes his hand, hard, like he could crush that delicate joint, and he imagines it wrapped in chains, fixed to the wall, tied to the bed, anything. Riku, hidden away from everyone, a little deity pulled down from heaven, fastened tight to the earth. Existing only to be admired by Tenn, to be loved by him. To be worshipped day in and day out by the most wicked of all sinners. Until Riku forgot everyone, until Riku knew nothing but Tenn’s unending adoration. Tenn reminding him of it every night, in that same way, pouring all his feelings into the heated depths of Riku’s body. Indulging in his beauty. Consuming him, wholly. Entirely. A Riku no one knows or remembers. Tenn’s own. His possession. His most precious, precious possession.

So Tenn thinks of it all. Tying Riku to this bed with his own hands, fucking into him like a creature in heat, marking him like an animal, dominating him completely. Leaving for work and then coming back to a captive Riku, waiting for him, staring up at him from the floor. Pushing his cock into that awaiting mouth so easily, because he’d teach Riku to expect it. He’d train him to obey. He’d lock Riku in a dark place and discipline him the way he needs it. Telling him, _I won’t let anyone else have you_. Promising, _You won’t ever leave me_. And making Riku understand that, making him swear to it, making him repeat it. _I won’t leave Tenn-nii, I won’t ever leave Tenn-nii._

Not ever.

Tenn comes back to himself. He sighs a heavy breath, and he squeezes tight around his own cock, feeling his orgasm approaching with the force of a rolling thundercloud. He licks a line up Riku’s shaft, and wraps his lips over the cockhead once more, and sucks with the intention of feeling Riku spill into his mouth.

He wishes he could do these things. His own gut burns at the thought of seeing Riku manipulated like that, made to answer to every one of Tenn’s whims, forced to open himself up to Tenn’s savage desires. And, at the same time, Tenn recoils against all that, turns away from his own thoughts, and yearns to treat Riku tenderly, sweetly, just like he deserves, servicing him, pleasuring him, handling him like the beautiful little angel he is. Doing everything so slow and gentle for him, so warm and loving. Kissing him under a faint moonlight as they move in tandem, their breaths mixing, clinging to one another. Learning all of Riku’s best spots, the sensitive areas of his body that he likes the most.

But that would require control. And Tenn doesn't know how to numb himself enough to control himself like that. He simply can’t do anything. He’s a prisoner to the hunger of his own body. In the end, he’s just a man.

So, instead, he breathlessly bobs his mouth over Riku’s cock, picking up speed, and jerks the hand in his pants in that practiced way, and he huffs out hard through his nose, and feels his spine tighten, like drawing a bowstring. And in the next moment he’s groaning, and shoving his hips into his own palm, and feeling the wetness accumulate there, in sudden surges. And Riku must fall to the tightness of his mouth, because he follows suit immediately, clenching his legs so hard around Tenn’s shoulders, gripping his hair in as solid a grip as he can probably manage. He always cums so beautifully, is the passing thought Tenn has, while Riku spurts into his mouth.

“Tenn-nii, _Tenn-nii_ ,” Riku sobs, like always. “Tenn-nii, I— T-Tenn-nii...“

His voice is the most gorgeous in the whole world.

Tenn, then, abruptly yanks his head back, and looks at Riku in the eyes, and swallows, hard. He wipes a hand against his mouth, gasps in to catch his breath. And before he can even begin to say anything, Riku tackles him down to the floor, his hands pressed to Tenn’s chest, leaning in to kiss him, and this close, Tenn can see how he cried from the pleasure, because his cheeks are damp, because his eyelashes still hold stray silver teardrops. They kiss against the floor like that, the wood dull and hard against Tenn’s shoulder blades, painful, even, but it adds a strange edge to it all, and while Riku whimpers at the way Tenn gnaws at his bottom lip, Tenn slides greedy hands into the back of Riku’s pajama pants, gripping at the swell of his ass, pulling him so close that way. He listens now, to how the tone of Riku’s noises changes, how it goes high and erotic, even after doing that, even after, presumably, they were both just satisfied. And they were. Because Tenn feels that happy, airy afterglow, like bubbles popping in his chest, that deeply sated feeling of indulging in Riku, spoiling himself on him, like a high, like drinking himself stupid on him. But—

But, in spite of that—

“Riku.”

“...Tenn-nii?”

And Tenn, because he’s selfish, because he knows he can do this, says, “Let me touch you more.”

As expected, Riku whispers, “Okay.”

And so he does. And he pushes his hands up and slides them beneath Riku’s shirt, leading it directly off his head and arms, tossing it somewhere beside them. Tenn presses a hand to the back of Riku’s head and pulls him downward, leaning in to lick over the mark he made against Riku’s neck yesterday, and Riku trembles so fiercely in his arms, mewls like he likes it, tilting his head back like telling him to do more. But, really, it’s big enough, and any more would surely be very dangerous, so Tenn only loves over the spot with careful kisses, and enjoys the illusion of ownership, feeling that muted spark begin to smolder somewhere inside him. He can’t do more than this. He really can’t.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku says, because of course he would.

“No,” Tenn answers.

“Why not—“

“It’s already big enough, you know. The way it is now, you’ll definitely get in trouble.” And even as Tenn says that, like a warning, he bites back the satisfaction of it, the covetous thought that _he_ did this, _he_ marked Riku like this, and only he could ever do it, and anyone who sees it would know that Riku belongs somewhere. Belongs to someone. Belongs to him, exclusively.

But that thought was a mistake. Because in the next moment, Tenn remembers Izumi Iori, and those text messages, and that sinister nightmare he had, and he feels himself become filled by something cold and dark and destructive. Like flipping a switch. Like blinking one’s eyes. Tenn looks at Riku now, and sees someone vulnerable to the whole world, something defenseless and weak. Unguarded, oblivious. And he chokes on the terror of it, of Riku being stolen from him, of Riku walking into that danger and being swallowed up, because that’s the reality. Because as soon as he lets Riku go today, he’ll return to that open universe of people who adore him, and he’ll leave himself exposed, because that’s just how he is. He hasn’t hardened to the threats of the world, and likely never will. That’s Riku. That’s what he’s like. And the biggest threat of all, Tenn realizes, bitterly, is Izumi Iori.

Tenn feels very stupid, just then.

Because it’s dawning on him, now. That, as much as he vows to continue this, as much as he swears to keep Riku close to him, he can’t protect against everything. He can’t expect to guard Riku from the world. He can’t. And that’s all there is to it. He simply can’t. He won’t lock him away. He won’t hide Riku in a secret place. Tenn can only hold as tightly as he can to this sick, poisonous love between them and hope it’s enough. Pray it’s enough.

That’s all.

“Tenn-nii went quiet,” Riku whispers, tracing the tip of one finger along Tenn’s jaw, blinking his wide eyes slow.

“Ah, sorry,” Tenn mumbles, instantly zeroing back, but he’s unable to stop himself from saying, “Riku,” before biting down on his tongue.

“Hmm?”

“No, nothing,” Tenn says hurriedly, but it’s too late now. He knows it is, because he can tell from the way Riku shifts, the way he tilts his head.

“What is it?” Riku says.

“Nothing,” Tenn repeats, uselessly.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku says, and his voice is starting to pitch those few degrees upwards, and even just hearing that fills Tenn with exhaustion, because he recognizes how futile it is to shy away from this. Ultimately, this is something they’ll be forced to face. Isn’t it? Or rather, this is something Tenn will put them through, because he isn’t strong enough to ever let Riku go. The utter dread of it makes him feel like vomiting. He can’t ever, ever, _ever_ let it happen.

He’s so selfish. He’s so miserably, miserably selfish. So he makes a decision.

If he can’t trap Riku from the outside, he’ll trap Riku from the inside.

Tenn pushes up on his hands and sits up, grabbing Riku hard by the wrists, and it’s unexpected, he knows, because Riku cries out, confused, but he won’t be stopped. He maneuvers Riku onto his knees at his bedside, shoving his shoulders into the mattress, and as he does this, he hears his own breaths over the sound of Riku making scared noises, and so he bites down on his lip, and stares at the tempting arc of Riku’s smooth back, and he slides his fingers from the top of Riku’s spine down to the very edge of his pajama pants, feeling that elegant curve quiver and bend just a little more beneath his fingertips. And Riku, so tame now, buries his face in the bedsheets and grips them in his hands, panting quiet little breaths, and Tenn revels in that submission, if only for a second, before pulling down both Riku’s pants and underwear, and nearly suffocating at the way his lungs give out.

Because, well, it’s as expected. It’s sexy. It’s ridiculously, crazily sexy. And Tenn takes a few moments to just marvel at this body, and how soft he is everywhere, and how fucking _hot_ it is to get to spread Riku’s ass apart with his hands and hear him moan and whine and ask what he’s doing, and Tenn doesn't answer him. All this, everything he's doing—it’s just him yielding to his own jealousy, his own depravity. Like a venom burning through his veins, all the way to his heart. He allows that same tainted Kujo Tenn take him over and corrupt him, just like always. When it’s Riku, always.

Tenn presses forward, grabbing Riku’s hipbones and sliding his erection against the cleft of Riku’s ass, and it’s so much fucking better than he ever imagined it was like, and he pulls Riku’s face toward his own and shoves their mouths against one another’s, and it’s less a kiss and more of a cheap display of dominance, and when Riku lets out desperate, frightened sounds, Tenn pushes his tongue in and swallows them all.

And he thinks of everyone, and thinks of Izumi Iori most of all, and he’s almost made dizzy by the caustic mixture of emotions boiling at the pit of his stomach, how much anger he feels, how much terror is crawling over his skin, and it’s with an almost primal delirium that he yanks Riku’s head back by a fistful of his hair, and breathes into his ear, “Riku, let me fuck you.”

And Riku’s lips tremble when he says, “Huh?” and he turns to look at Tenn with so much panic in his eyes, with so much worry in his brow, and so Tenn grasps his face in one hand, much harder than he needs to, really, and Riku winces and tugs at his shirt sleeve and begs him to let go, but Tenn doesn’t let go. He reaches for one of Riku’s arms, twists it behind him, taking his wrist and leading his brother’s hand down until he can slip the length of his cock along Riku’s palm. He curls his fingers over Riku’s own, and slides into that little combined enclosure.

And because he’s cruel, he asks Riku, “You’ll let me, won’t you?” Laughing, too, at the question itself. “You’ll let me, I know you will.”

But this person doesn’t laugh back, doesn’t smile at all. Does nothing but blink his eyes and begin to cry, start to bleat like a little lamb, because he’s so terrified, isn’t he? He’s so fucking petrified and confused, isn’t he? Feeling just a little of what Tenn feels now, the anxiety, the pain. _Be more scared_ , Tenn wants to tell him. _So scared you won’t ever think of leaving me._

He presses bites to Riku’s neck, his shoulders. And Riku shudders away from him, but Tenn holds him fast, pays little attention to the way he whimpers, “Tenn-nii, it hurts.”

Instead, Tenn decides to be obscene.

“Do you know how we’d do it?” he asks, breathlessly, still shoving his hips insistently into that tightness created by his and Riku’s hands. “Do you know how I’d fuck you?”

“I...I—“

“Do you know what it means? What it’s like to have sex?”

Tenn only asks that because he knows Riku doesn’t. Riku is an innocent, stupid kid who knows nothing past the things they did together today, yesterday, and the day before. He’s like a little blank canvas that’s been touched all over by Tenn, marred by him. He only knows how to be touched, how to feel good. And nothing else. Nothing about sex, about how it could feel inside. Nothing like that.

But Tenn likes that. He enjoys that, the idea of destroying the pureness in Riku’s eyes with his hands and his mouth and his cock. Ruining him forever for anyone else. Because Tenn will have been the first one to spread his legs open and take him. The first one and the only one.

“Haven’t we,” Riku starts, and he swallows, and Tenn watches a tear streak down his cheek to fall from his chin. “Haven’t we— Haven’t we been... been doing that? H-Having...”

“Are you serious?” Tenn blurts, and even he can’t believe Riku’s ignorance.

But Riku just looks at him, and his lip wobbles and he nods, and Tenn feels it a little—a little, the guilt from that first night, the remorse. The horror of having defiled his own brother, having given way to his impulses. These warring thoughts filter downward from his mind and paralyze his entire body. So he stops moving, entirely, and looks back at him, in silence.

And they stay like that. Until Riku’s face breaks, until he hiccups and sobs, strained and quiet, “Tenn-nii, I’m so scared.”

“No,” Tenn says, and it all comes apart, and he grips Riku’s arms and shakes his head and says, again, “No, no, Riku—“

“I’m scared,” Riku cries, and he flinches away from him, closing his eyes tight, such a difference from yesterday, when he had been the one to refuse to let Tenn go, had been the one to wrap his arms and legs around him. “Tenn-nii, I’m scared.”

“Riku, look at me,” Tenn pleads, “Look at me.”

“Why is Tenn-nii doing this?” Riku asks, bringing his fists up to wipe at his eyes. “Why is Tenn-nii talking like this? When I don’t— I don’t like it—“

“ _Riku_ —“

“You know,” Riku says, past a sniffle, “Tenn-nii is always scary. Everyone has always said that. They tell me Tenn-nii is scary. A-And I say... I say that, to me, Tenn-nii is the coolest.”

Tenn lets his hands fall to his sides. He holds his breath, and feels Riku’s words rain shame over every inch of his skin—he feels those words sink in and mire him in disgrace.

“Tenn-nii is so talented. Tenn-nii is amazing. And even when I’m scared, I think that. Even when other people say those things, I think that. And Tenn-nii treated me nicely and made me feel so good, and I thought, maybe—“ Riku chokes hard on a sob, and hewraps his arms around his own body, like he’ll collapse at a moment’s notice. And Tenn can’t bring himself to reach for him anymore, to touch him. He tries to speak, and can’t do that either.

“Maybe—“ Riku stammers, “Maybe— maybe, Tenn-nii has stopped being... scary. I thought that. I hoped for that. But I can tell when Tenn-nii is really angry. I can tell when Tenn-nii won’t listen to me.”

And now, Riku whips his head back so swiftly that Tenn jerks back on instinct, and he takes in Riku’s swollen eyes and tear-streaked face and exhales at the guilt burgeoning in his chest, and somehow that makes it easy for Riku to shove him down and look over him. He grips Tenn’s shoulders, and his tears fall and hit Tenn’s face.

“I _hate_ it,” he says.

And that’s enough.

Tenn, daring scarcely to breathe, lifts a hand slowly and smooths it along his brother’s wet cheek, moving it back to pet his fingers along Riku’s nape, and Riku stares into his eyes, and Tenn sees everything, in a fleeting moment, drain from him, all the fight and all the fire. And he’s there to wrap Riku in his arms when he falls onto his chest, burying his face into Tenn’s neck, crying, “Tenn-nii, I hate it, I _hate_ it.”

“Riku.”

“I hate it, okay? Does Tenn-nii understand? I hate it so much. W-When Tenn-nii is angry, when Tenn-nii is scary. Don’t be like that with me. After what we—“

“Yes.”

“What we did—“

“I know.”

“Don’t scare me anymore,” Riku says, “Don’t get angry with me. Because I...”

Abruptly, Riku rises from Tenn’s chest to look down at him once more, and his face is so pretty even like this. He’s so gorgeous even when he’s hurt, even when his body is fragmenting, even when Tenn can see the proof of his own errors written in salt along Riku’s cheeks. And everything, everything, is almost too devastating to comprehend. Tenn is so sick, so diseased, infected by a rotted, overwhelming love as old as his own heart, a feeling that matured inside him, a feeling that now reaches its claws outward to imprison Riku forever.

But this person simply can’t be contained. That’s the truth of it, plain as words. Tenn can’t trap him from the outside, and Riku won’t allow it from the inside, either. Tenn sees that. Because, of course, Riku is his own person. He isn’t only a vessel into which Tenn pours his love. He isn’t a soul Tenn can hold captive in a chamber assembled from his own blood and pain. Riku is simply that. Riku. His own person.

A person with his own desires and distastes. A person who wants to be treated gently. A person all his own.

Nanase Riku.

Yes. This is the person Nanase Tenn fell in love with, the person Kujo Tenn will love forever.

“I’ll hate Tenn-nii,” Riku breathes, “Please don’t make me. Don’t make me hate Tenn-nii. I...”

“Riku,” Tenn says.

“Because I love Tenn-nii.” Riku’s voice is so small and unsteady, and it makes Tenn think of glass cracking at the edges, under the weight of something greater than itself.

Riku grabs Tenn's hand and holds it to his cheek, and he closes his eyes and says, “I love Tenn-nii.” After a few moments, his breathing steadies, and Tenn watches his chest rise and fall, thinking of the heart beating in that tiny cage, how much it’s endured until now, how hard it’s worked, to keep Riku before him, how many times Tenn has dug a knife into that muscle and twisted it, and caused Riku to cry just like this—that little heart has lasted so long, suffered so much. It suffers now and it’ll keep suffering, as long as it makes space for Tenn. And Tenn thinks, as he looks at Riku, that it would be so much easier for them both if that heart would expel him. If Riku didn’t love him. It’d be simpler like that. To have no hope for anything. Truthfully, it’s what Tenn deserves.

Riku’s eyes flicker open.

“Does Tenn-nii love me?” Riku whispers.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Riku presses his hands flat to floor and leans closer, close enough for the fringe at the side of his face to tickle Tenn’s chin, and at this distance, Tenn can scarcely bear the urge to push upward and connect their mouths. But he knows he shouldn’t, so he only exhales a weak breath and stares at him, feeling so, so, lost in him.

“Is Tenn-nii in love with me?” Riku asks softly.

“Yes,” Tenn answers.

“Tell me.”

“I’m in love with you.”

“Again.”

“I’m in in love with you, Riku.”

“Yeah?” Riku whispers, leaning even closer, pushing his body, now, against Tenn’s own. His eyes go hazy and his breathing picks up, and Tenn can no longer keep still, so he yanks Riku into his lap, and they breathe so close to each other’s mouths, and they could kiss so easily like this, but Tenn holds back, and Riku does the same, and they lace their fingers together so naturally, and when Riku pushes his erection against Tenn’s own, they move in unison, like the roll of a tide.

“I’m so—“ Tenn begins, and Riku moves a certain way then, so he gasps, and Riku sighs against him, and their lips brush against one another’s as they inhale, and Tenn says, desperately, “I’m so in love with you, I’m _so_ , _so_ in love with you.”

“Th-That—“

“Really. I love you.”

Tenn’s heart beats so fast it hurts. But he can only move his hips and groan and try to breathe around the mounting pressure, like slowly filling a glass, like reaching the rim until it’s on the cusp of spilling over. His feelings overflow. They bubble forth from his mouth like wine. He gazes at Riku’s face, at how open his expressions are, how he shows his arousal so plainly and honestly. Every new aspect of him is another facet for Tenn to adore.

When they finish, minutes later, Riku looks at him.

He glares at him.

“Uh, Rik—“

“Is Tenn-nii sorry?” he snaps.

“...Eh?”

“Is Tenn-nii sorry? For doing that? For scaring me? Is Tenn-nii sorry?”

“That— I— Riku—“ Tenn stammers.

“Tell me,” Riku interrupts. “Tell me right now if Tenn-nii is sorry.”

“I— I am sorry.”

“Really? Really, Tenn-nii is sorry?”

“I am,” Tenn insists, “Riku, really, I am. I’m sorry.”

“Will Tenn-nii do it again?” Riku asks, and for a second, it almost looks like he’ll cry again, but he turns away just before Tenn can say anything, and stands up on shaky legs, pulling up his pajama pants.“Because I-I’ll hate Tenn-nii, you know. I’ll really, truly _hate_ —“

“I know,” Tenn says, firmly, and he rises too, and he takes one of Riku’s hands in both his own, trying to meet his eyes, but Riku looks, instead, at the bedroom door.

“Do you hate me?” he asks.

Riku hesitates.

“It’s okay,” Tenn says, even when it feels like his voice will fail him. He squeezes Riku’s hand. “It’s fine if you do. After everything.”

Even though it’s not fine. He could never be fine with that. He’d rather die than be hated by Riku. He couldn’t imagine living with that. He couldn’t do it. And so he holds this little hand with every ounce of his hope and regret, swallowing back the way he wants to collapse at Riku’s feet and beg him for forgiveness.

“I don’t hate Tenn-nii,” Riku says, quiet. “I couldn’t ever hate Tenn-nii.”

“Do you love me?” Tenn asks.

“Yes,” Riku replies. “I said so, I said it already.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“I said that.”

“So you don’t?”

Riku makes a frustrated noise, turning back to wrench his hand away from Tenn. “I said that,” he grumbles. “I love Tenn-nii. Stop it.”

He’s so ridiculously adorable even when he’s angry.

“You love me?” Tenn asks, looping his arms around his brother’s waist, tugging him close. He presses his mouth to Riku’s bare shoulder, gives a little bite. His fingers wander upward, stroking over the smoothness of his stomach. “You don’t hate me?”

“Tenn-nii,” Riku says, weakly.

“Do you like when I touch you?” Tenn breathes. “When I make you cum?”

“I-I already _said_ —“

“I like it too, you know? You’re really cute when you’re feeling it. Your face gets really—“

Riku lets out some sort of embarrassed squawk, and he yanks himself out of Tenn’s grasp, falling inelegantly onto the bed, but not before his foot crashes into the nightstand and knocks over Tenn's phone. Tenn crouches to pick it up, and out of habit, he checks his notifications.

_This is Kujo Tenn’s phone number, is it not? Is Nanase-san not with you?_

From Izumi Iori.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Tenn says, feeling all the wind go out of him.

“Tenn-nii is so embarrassing,” Riku whines, his voice muffled by a pillow. “It’s so embarrassing, you know, when Tenn-nii—“

“Riku,” Tenn says, shooting up. He moves immediately to yank the pillow from Riku’s hands, and pulls Riku up by his arm.

“What— that hurts—“

“It’s 7:40,” Tenn hisses.

Right away, Riku pales.

“Go wash up,” Tenn instructs, tugging him directly out the door. “I’ll make you something to take there to eat.”

“But—“

“ _Now_ ,” Tenn says. He pushes Riku into the bathroom and slams the door in his face.

In the kitchen, he cleans his hands off and throws some food into a bento box as quickly as he can manage, which is, thankfully, fast enough to stay ahead of his rapidly encroaching self-hatred. Because he can’t focus on that right now. Because he _needs_ to get Riku to the studio on time. Because that’s the bare minimum anyone should expect from Riku, because he’s a professional, because he shouldn’t arrive late, anywhere, _ever_. That’s unacceptable. And for Tenn to have allowed—

But he can’t. He can’t, not right now. He can’t think like that. He’ll leave the guilt for later, as he did before, as he's been doing since this entire mess began.

As soon as Tenn finishes with the bento, he gets on the phone and demands that someone from Yaotome Pro come to drop off Riku at the studio, immediately. Which doesn’t take much asking, in truth. At the sound of his tone, they seem happy to oblige.

Tenn quickly gathers some clothes for Riku to borrow, and opens the door of the bathroom to hand them over. And that’s when Riku wordlessly points to the blotch on his neck.

“Fucking _dammit_ ,” Tenn says, starting to feel, now, a hint of a rumble within him, some sort of raw, seismic tenseness, a disintegration.

“It’s not worth getting angry,” Riku mumbles, but as he says that, he takes a small step back, winces, like he’s bracing himself.

He’s afraid.

Tenn takes a deep breath through his nose. And he says nothing as he roots through his bathroom drawers, as he pulls the backing from an adhesive patch. He slowly raises his hands to Riku’s neck, and Riku flinches, and Tenn brushes his fingertips against his pulse point. He can feel the beat of a frightened heart beneath his touch.

“I’m going to put this on,” he says. “Okay?”

And Riku says, softly, “Okay.”

Tenn smooths the patch deftly over Riku’s neck, knowing very well that it will draw questions and generate assumptions, and he has the sense that he’s running from something, a mental image of racing away from a looming shadow, something that will eclipse him completely and swallow them both. And he shakes his head to rid himself of this thought, and Riku looks at him curiously, with those same large, starry eyes, and Tenn truly feels everything closing in.

He turns away the instant he finishes, and tells Riku, “Let’s go.”

He should expect it, he supposes. When Riku says, in the elevator down, “Will Tenn-nii drop me off?”

Tenn flicks his eyes over to Riku, who stands with his back against the elevator wall, his hands in front of him, holding the bento box Tenn made. Wearing Tenn’s clothes. His eyes still swollen from crying. He imagines the others will wonder just how Kujo Tenn made him cry, just like always. How Kujo Tenn hurt Riku this time. How he trampled all over Riku’s delicate feelings, once again. Tenn figures they’ll form their own bleak, elaborate hypotheses, and they still won’t be anywhere near as bad as the truth.

Riku has to show up to work with hickeys on his body, with the imprint of Tenn’s mouth on him, after they touched each other and called each other’s names. After doing the worst things imaginable.

“No,” Tenn bites out.

“Tenn-nii, please,” Riku says.

“You don’t need me to drop you off. I called the car.”

“I don’t, but—“

“Just hurry up and get to the studio.”

“Tenn-nii, _please_. I want to—“

“It’s bad enough that you’ve stayed over for so long,” Tenn says.

“Just this,” Riku pleads, “Just this. I want to stay... I want to stay with Tenn-nii for as long as I can.”

“Riku,” Tenn says, strained, but he can’t win. He knows it. It’s futile. Stupidly futile.

“Just this,” Riku says, and he steps over, and stands in front of him. The expression on his face hurts to look at.

This is how it’ll be, Tenn knows. From now on. As everything comes down around him, he takes his brother’s hand, and steps out of the elevator.

He doesn’t think much, on their way to the studio together. Riku sits closely next to him in the back seat, trying to whisper things, trying to speak to him, but Tenn looks out the window and says nothing back. Riku plays with his hand, tracing little hearts onto Tenn’s palm with the tip of his finger, rubbing his cheek against Tenn’s shoulder. Tenn looks out at all the passing cars and the people and the buildings and feels very small. Confined within the weight of the outside world. And Riku’s presence next to him feels light and lovely and undeniably radiant. Pure and real. And Tenn tries, for a moment, to harden his heart to that feeling, and all it takes is a squeeze from Riku’s hand to make it melt away.

That’s true weakness.

They reach the studio quickly, but Riku is still a few minutes late, which Tenn desperately tries not to think about. They pull up in front, and Riku pulls Tenn by the arm as he steps out, and Tenn resigns himself to it. He gives no complaint, and doesn’t hesitate to step out after him. It’s useless.

“I love Tenn-nii,” Riku gushes, throwing his arms around Tenn’s middle. “I love Tenn-nii. So much, so much.”

“Riku—“

Tenn hears the sliding doors of the studio glide open, and he has no time to push Riku away before someone steps out. He fastens his hands to Riku’s shoulders, about to shove him back, but he freezes, instantly. When he sees who it is.

“Nanase-san.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry there's even more angst ahead. lol  
> i want to get the new chap out quickly but ill also be writing another oneshot soon, probably....?  
> [twitter link](https://twitter.com/sympamore) as usual


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